secrets; although the graver counsellors imputed this liberty of speech to vanity or lightness. And upon the whole, no two men could differ more, in their diversions, their studies, their ways of transacting business, their choice of company, or manner of conversation.
The queen, who was well informed of these animosities among her servants, of which her own dubious management had been the original cause, began to find, and lament, the ill consequences of them in her affairs, both at home and abroad; and to lay the blame upon her treasurer, whose greatest fault, in his whole ministry, was too much compliance with his mistress, by which his measures were often disconcerted, and himself brought under suspicion by his friends.
I am very confident that this alteration in the queen's temper toward the earl of Oxford could never have appeared, if he had not thought it to make one step in politicks which I have not been able to apprehend. When the queen first thought of making a change among; her servants, after Dr. Sacheverell's trial, my lady Masham was very much heard and trusted upon that point; and it was by her intervention, Mr. Harley was admitted into her majesty's presence. That lady was then in high favour with her mistress; which, I believe, the earl was not so very sedulous to cultivate or preserve as if he had it much at heart, nor was altogether sorry when he saw it under some degree of declination. The reasons for this must be drawn from the common nature of mankind, and the incompatibility of power: but the juncture was not favourable for such a refinement; because it was
