bad as that," said Uncle Jack candidly; "but no simile holds good in all its points. And the public are not less Troggledummies, or whatever you call them, compared with what they will be when living under the full light of my Literary Times. Sir, it will be a revolution in the world. It will bring literature out of the clouds into the parlour, the cottage, the kitchen. The idlest dandy, the finest fine lady, will find something to her taste; the busiest man of the mart and counter will find some acquisition to his practical knowledge. The practical man will see the progress of divinity, medicine, nay, even law. Sir, the Indian will read me under the banyan; I shall be in the seraglios of the East; and over my sheets the American Indian will smoke the calumet of peace. We shall reduce politics to its proper level in the affairs of life-raise literature to its due place in the thoughts and business of men. It is a grand thought; and my heart swells with pride while I contemplate it!"

"My dear Jack," said my father, seriously, and rising with emotion, "it is a grand thought, and I honour you for it! You are quite right-it would be a revolution! It would educate mankind insensibly. Upon my life, I should be proud to write a leader, or a paragraph. Jack, you will immortalise yourself!"

"I believe I shall," said Uncle Jack, modestly; "but I have not said a word yet on the greatest attraction of all—” "Ah! and that-"

"THE ADVERTISEMENTS!" cried my uncle, spreading his hands, with all the fingers at angles, like the threads of a spider's web. "The advertisements-oh, think of them!-a perfect El Dorado. The advertisements, sir, on the most moderate calculation, will bring us in £50,000 a-year. My dear Pisistratus, I shall never marry, you are my heir. Embrace me!

So saying, my Uncle Jack threw himself upon me, and squeezed out of breath the prudential demur that was rising to my lips.

My poor mother, between laughing

and sobbing, faltered out-" And it is my brother who will pay back to his son all, all he gave up for me!"

While my father walked to and fro' the room, more excited than ever I saw him before, muttering,-" A sad useless dog I have been hitherto! I should like to serve the world! I should indeed!”

Uncle Jack had fairly done it this time! He had found out the only bait in the world to catch so shy a carp as my father-"hæret lethalis arundo." I saw that the deadly hook was within an inch of my father's nose, and that he was gazing at it with a fixed determination to swallow.

But if it amused my father? Boy that I was, I saw no further. I must own I myself was dazzled, and perhaps, with childlike malice, delighted at the perturbation of my betters. The young carp was pleased to see the waters so playfully in movement, when the old carp waved his tail, and swayed himself on his fins.

"Mum!" said Uncle Jack, releasing me: “not a word to Mr Trevanion, to any one."

แ

"But why?" Why? God bless my soul. Why? If my scheme gets wind, do you suppose some one will not clap on sail to be before me? You frighten me out of my senses. Promise me faithfully to be silent as the grave-"

"I should like to hear Trevanion's opinion too—”

"As well hear the town-crier! Sir, I have trusted to your honour. Sir, at the domestic hearth all secrets are sacred. Sir, I—"

"My dear Uncle Jack, you have said quite enough. Not a word will I breathe!"

"I'm sure you may trust him, Jack," said my mother.

"And I do trust him-with wealth untold," replied my uncle. "May I ask you for a little water-with a trifle of brandy in it-and a biscuit, or indeed a sandwich. This talking makes me quite hungry."

My eye fell upon Uncle Jack as he spoke. Poor Uncle Jack, he had grown thin!

IT has been the fortune of England to have undergone more revolutions than any other kingdom of Europe. Later periods have made Revolution synonymous with popular violence; but the more effectual revolution is that which, being required by the necessities of a people, is directed by the national judgment. It is not the convulsion of a tempest, which, if it purifies the air, strips the soil; it is a change, not of temperature but of the seasons, gradual but irresistible; it is a great operation of moral Nature, in every change preparing for the more abundant provision of public prosperity.

It is an equally remarkable contrast to the condition of other kingdoms, that while their popular revolutions have almost always plunged the country into confusion, and been ultimately rectified only by the salutary despotism of some powerful master, the hazards of our revolutions have chiefly originated in personal ambition, and have been reduced to order by popular sentiment.

The Reformation was the first great revolution of England: it formed the national circle of light and darkness. All beyond it was civil war, arbitrary power, and popular wretchedness-all within it has been progress, growing vigour, increasing illumination, and more systematic liberty. Like the day, it had its clouds; but the sun was still above, ready to shine through their first opening. That sun has not yet stooped from its meridian, and will go down, only when we forget to honour the Beneficence and the power which commanded it to shine.

The accession of the Hanoverian line was one of those peaceful revolutions-it closed the era of Jacobitism. The reign of Anne had vibrated between the principles of the constitution and the principles of Charles II. Never was a balance more evenly poised, than the fate of freedom against the return to arbitrary power. Anne

herself was a Jacobite-she had all the superstition of “Divine right." By her nature she had the infirmities of the convent. She was evidently fitter to be an abbess than a queen: a character of frigidness and formality designated her for the cloister; and if the Hanoverian succession had not been palpably prepared before the national eye, to ascend the throne at the moment when the royal coffin sank into the vault, England might have seen the profligate son of James dealing out vengeance through a corrupted or terrified legislature; the Reformation extinguished by the Inquisitor; the jesuit at the royal ear, mass in Westminster Abbey, and the scaffold the instrument of conversion to the supremacy of Rome.

The expulsion of the Stuarts had left the throne to the disposal of the nation. By the Bill of Rights, it was determined that the succession should go to the heirs of William and Mary; and, in their default, to Anne, daughter of James. But the deaths of Mary, and of the Duke of Gloucester, awoke the hopes of Popery and the cabals of Jacobitism once more. The danger was imminent. William became deeply anxious for the Protestant succession, and a bill was brought into the House of Commons, declaring that the crown should devolve on the Electress Sophia, Duchess-dowager of Hanover, and her heirs,-the Electress of Hanover (or more correctly, of Brunswick and Luneburg) being the tenth child of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, daughter of James I., the only Protestant princess among the foreign relations of the line. The next in succession to Anne in the Roman Catholic line would have been the houses of Savoy, France, and Spain, through Henrietta, daughter of Charles I. This order of succession was made law by the 12th of William III., and confirmed in the next session by the Abjuration Act, (13th William,) so named from the oath abjuring the Pretender.

It is striking to observe how many

high matters of legislation have seemed the work of casualty. The Habeas Corpus Act, confessedly the noblest achievement of British liberty since Magna Charta, was said to have been carried by a mistake in counting the votes of the House; the limitation to the Electress was proposed by a half-lunatic; the oath of abjuration was carried but by a majority of one; and the Reform Bill, which, though a measure as doubtful in its principles as disappointing in its promises, has yet exercised an extraordinary power over the constitution, was carried in its second reading by a majority of only one.

It is more important to observe how large a share of legislation, in the reign of Anne, was devoted to the security of the Protestant succession. The 4th, 6th, and 10th of Anne are occupied in devising clauses to give it force. It was guaranteed in all the great diplomatic transactions of the reign,-in the Dutch Treaty of 1706, in the Barrier Treaty of 1709, in the Guarantee Treaty of 1713, and in the Treaty of Utrecht of the same year, between England and France, and England and Spain.

This diligence and determination seem wholly due to the spirit of the people. The Queen was almost a Jacobite; her ministers carried on correspondences with the family of James; there was scarcely a man of influence in public life who had not an agent at St Germains. Honest scruples, too, had been long entertained among individuals of high rank. Six of the seven bishops who had so boldly resisted the arrogance of James, shrank from repudiating the claims of his son. It is true, that nothing could be feebler than their reasons; for nothing could be more evident than the treason of James to the oath which he had sworn at his coronation. Its violation was his virtual dethronement-his abdication was his actual dethronement; and the principles of his family, all Papists like himself, rendered it impossible to possess freedom of conscience, while any one of a race of bigots and tyrants retained the power to oppress. Thus the nation only vindicated itself, and used only the common rights of self

defence; and used them only in the calm and deliberate forms of selfpreservation.

This strong abhorrence of the exiled family arose alike from a sense of religion, and a sense of fear. The people had seen with disgust and disdain the persecution of Protestantism by the French King. They had seen the scandalous treachery which had broken all compacts, the ostentatious falsehood which had trafficked in promises, and the remorseless cruelty which had strewed the Protestant provinces with dead. The Revocation of the Edict of Nantes gave a sanguinary and perpetual caution "not to put their trust in princes;" and the generous spirit of the people, doubly excited by scorn for the persecutor, and pity for his victims, was thenceforth armed in panoply alike against the arts and the menaces of Jacobitism and Popery. So it has been, and so may it ever be. The Stuarts have passed away-they mouldered from the sight of men; they have no more place or name on earth; they have been sunk in the mire of their monkism; their "drowned honour" is incapable of being plucked up even "by the locks;" but their principles survive, and against their corruption we must guard the very air we breathe.

The Electress, a woman of remarkable intelligence, died in 1714, in her 84th year. The Queen died in the August following. George I., Elector of Brunswick, son of Sophia, arrived in England in September, and was King of the fairest empire in the world. He was then fifty-four years old.

The habits of George I. were Continental-a phrase which implies all of laxity that is consistent with the etiquette of a court. His personal reign was anxious, troubled, and toilsome; but the nation prospered, and the era had evidently arrived when the character of the sitter on the throne had ceased to attract the interest, or influence the conduct of the nation. The King had no taste for the fine arts: he had no knowledge of literature. He had served in the army, like all the German princes, but had served without distinction. He loved Hanoverian life, and he was incapable of enjoying the life of England. He lived long enough to be

easily forgotten, and died of apoplexy on his way to Hanover!

George II., the chief object of these Memoirs, only son of George I. and Sophia Dorothea, was forty-four at his accession. In 1705 he had married Caroline, daughter of the Margrave of Brandenburg Anspach.

The reign of George II. was the era of another revolution-the supremacy of ministers. A succession of ambitious and able men governed the country by parties. The King was intelligent and active, yet they controlled him, until he found his chief task to be limited to obedience. He was singularly fond of power, and openly jealous of authority, but his successive ministers were the virtual masters of the crown. His chief vexations arose from their struggles for office; and his only compensation to his injured feelings was, in dismissing one cabinet, to find himself shackled by another. He seems to have lived in a state of constant ebullition with the world-speaking sarcastically of every leading person of his own society, and on harsh terms with his family. His personal habits were incapable of being praised, even by flattery, and the names of the Walmodens, the Deloraines, and the Howards, still startle the graver sensibilities of our time.

But his public conduct forms a striking contrast to those painful scenes. He was bold in conception and diligent in business. He felt the honour of being an English king; and though he wasted time and popularity in his childish habit of making his escape to Hanover whenever he could, he offered no wilful offence to the feelings of the people. His letters on public affairs exhibit strong sense, and he had the wisdom to leave his finance in the hands of Walpole, and the manliness to suffer himself to be afterwards eclipsed by the lustre of Chatham. His reign, which had begun in difficulties, and was carried on in perils, closed in triumph.-The French navy was swept from the ocean; the battle of the Heights of Abraham gave him Canada; the battle of Plassy gave him India; and at his death, in 1760, at the age of seventy-seven, he left England in a blaze of glory.

The death of George I. had brought Walpole forward as the minister of his son. The story of Sir Spencer Compton has been often told, but never so well as in these Memoirs. The King died on the 11th of June 1727 at Osnaburg. The news reached Walpole on the 14th, at his villa in Chelsea. He immediately went to Richmond to acquaint the Prince of Wales with this momentous intelligence. The Prince was asleep after dinner, according to his custom; but he was awakened for the intelligence, which he appeared to receive with surprise. Yet, neither the sense of his being raised to a throne, nor the natural feelings of such an occasion, prevented the exhibition of his dislike to Walpole. On being asked, when it was his pleasure that the Council should be summoned, the King's abrupt answer was, "Go to Chiswick, and take your directions from Sir Spencer Compton." Sir Robert bore this ill-usage with his habitual philosophy, and went to Compton at once. There he acted with his usual address; told him that he was minister, and requested his protection; declaring that he had no desire for power or business, but wished to have one of the "white sticks," as a mark that he was still under the shelter of the crown.

Lord Hervey delights in portraiture, and his portraits generally have a bitter reality, which at once proves the truth of the likeness and the severity of the artist. He daguerreotypes all his generation. He thus describes Sir Spencer: "He was a plodding, heavy fellow, with great application but no talents; with vast complaisance for a court; always more concerned for the manner of the thing than for the thing itself; fitter for a clerk to a minister than for a minister to a prince. His only pleasures were money and eating; his only knowledge forms and precedents; and his only insinuation bows and smiles." Walpole and he went together to the Duke of Devonshire, President of the Council, but laid up with the gout. Lord Hervey's sketch of him is certainly not flattering-but such is the price paid by personal feebleness for public station

"He was more able as a virtuoso than a statesman, and a much better jockey than a politician."

At the council Sir Spencer took Walpole aside, and begged of him, as a speech would be necessary for the King in Council, that, as Sir Robert was more accustomed to that sort of composition than himself, he should go into another room, and make a draft of the speech. Sir Robert retired to draw up his paper, and Sir Spencer went to Leicester Fields, where the King and Queen were already, followed by all who had any thing to ask, or any thing to hope-a definition which seems to have included the whole of what, in later parlance, are called the fashionable world. Whether the present sincerity of court life is purer than of old may be doubtful, but the older manners were certainly the more barefaced. When the new premier was returning to his coach he walked through a lane of "bowers," all shouldering each other to pay adoration to the new idol.

During the four days of the King's remaining in town, Leicester House, which used to be a desert, was "thronged from morning till night, like the 'Change at noon." But Walpole walked through those rooms "as if they had been empty." The same people who were officiously, a week before, crowding the way to flatter his prosperity, were now getting out of it to avoid sharing his disgrace. Horace Walpole says, that his mother could not make her way to pay her respects to the King and Queen between the scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach nearer to the Queen than the third or fourth row, until the Queen cried out,"There, I am sure I see a friend." The torrent then divided, and shrank to either side. In short, Walpole, with his brother Horace, ambassador to France, the Duke of Newcastle and Lord Townshend, the two Secretaries of State, were all conceived to be as much undone, as a pasha on the arrival of the janizary with the bowstring.

The evidences, it must be owned, seemed remarkably strong. The King had openly, and more than once, called Walpole "rogue and rascal;" he had called the ambassador" a scoundrel and a fool;" he had declared his utter contempt for the Duke, and his determination never to forgive him. Townshend fared still worse, The King

looked on him to be no more an honest man than an able minister, and attributed all the confusion in foreign affairs to the heat of his temper and his scanty genius, to the strength of his passions and the weakness of his understanding. There can be no

doubt that a minister of foreign affairs, with those qualities, might become a very mischievous animal.

On Compton's receiving the speech drawn up by Walpole, he carried it, in his own handwriting, to the King. The King objected to a paragraph, which Sir Spencer Compton was either unwilling or unable to amend; and not being satisfied of his own powers of persuasion, he actually solicited Walpole to go to the King, and persuade him to leave it as it was! The Queen, who was the friend of Walpole, instantly took advantage of this singular acknowledgment of inferiority, and advised the King to retain the man whom his intended successor so clearly acknowledged to be his superior.

Nothing can be more evident than that Sir Spencer played the fool egregiously. To place a rival in immediate communication with the King was, at least, an unusual way of supplanting him; while, to give him the advantage of his authorship, by sending him to explain it to the King, would have been ridiculous under any circumstances. But there are no miracles in politics; and he was evidently so far convinced of his own security, that the idea of a rival was out of the question. Compton had been all his life a political personage. He had been Paymaster; he had been Speaker in three Parliaments; he was au fait in the routine of office; and he had evidently received the King's order to make a ministry. But we have had such sufficient proof in our own time that princes and kings are different persons according to circumstances, that we can perfectly comprehend the cessation of the royal favouritism on one side, and of the royal aversion on the other. The civil list was still to be voted-the subject dearest to the royal heart. Walpole was noted for financial management, and Compton's awkwardness in the preceding transaction might well have startled the monarch. The general result