whig opposition. But his probity was best displayed in 1727 when, singlehanded, he opposed the settlement of the civil list, urging its reduction by 200,000l. annually, in a speech of great frankness. He spoke of the ‘frequent journeyings to Hanover’ and the ‘bottomless pit of secret service;’ but no member could be found to second his motion. From this time Shippen's energy greatly declined as a leader of opposition, though in 1728 he inveighed against Admiral Hosier's expedition, and in February 1733 opposed Walpole's excise scheme as ‘destructive to the liberties and the trade of the nation.’ His Jacobitism, too, was getting otiose; and when Lord Barrymore came over in 1740 on a secret embassy, he was advised that Shippen was much too timid and ineffective a conspirator to be consulted. In December 1741, when the cabal against Walpole culminated in the moving of an address to George II to remove that minister from his presence and counsels, Shippen unexpectedly seceded from the opposition, and was followed by thirty-four of his ‘friends.’ He explained that he regarded the motion merely as a scheme for turning out one ill-affected minister and bringing in another; and subsequently proposed as an amendment that his majesty should be entreated not to engage the kingdom in war for the safety of his foreign dominions. He and Walpole had a mutual regard. ‘Robin and I,’ he said, ‘are two honest men: he is for King George and I for King James, but those men in long cravats [Sandys, Rushout, Pulteney, and their following] only desire places under either one or the other.’ Shippen was no doubt right in judging that he would lose rather than gain by Walpole's ejection in their favour. This was Shippen's last prominent appearance in the house, where as ‘honest Shippen’ (so Pope called him) he had long been conspicuous. Though not a first-rate speaker—for he had a low voice, and, according to Horace Walpole, constantly spoke ‘with his glove before his mouth’—he became animated when, as was usual with him, his speech was reaching the point (expressed in some smart and effective phrase) which he desired to enforce. Though he affected to take orders from Rome, and regularly corresponded with Atterbury (on whose account his house in Norfolk Street was searched in 1723), Shippen seems to have been little regarded by the real leaders of the Jacobite party. He is chiefly interesting as a pioneer of constitutional opposition. The main purpose of the forlorn hope which he led was to harass the government. Walpole's contemptuous lenity was doubtless rightly explained by the member who wrote to Shippen in 1728: ‘All your stuff about serving high church and monarchy is absurd, and your principle is self-contradictory and felo-de-se. For were it possible for your endeavours to succeed, and to bring about what your friends traitorously desire, your beloved church and monarchy would be destroyed. The event would unavoidably be popery and slavery’ (An Epistle to W.——S.——,Esq., by a Member of Parliament, 1728, 8vo).
Shippen died in Norfolk Street, Strand, on 1 May 1743, and was buried on 7 May in St. Andrew's, Holborn. He married, about 1695, a sister of his schoolfellow, Bertram Stote, daughter and coheir of Sir Richard Stote, knt., of Jesmund Hall, Northumberland, serjeant-at-law. With her he had a fortune of 70,000l. He had a private fortune of 400l. a year, upon which he mainly subsisted at his London house, where he was fond of exercising a modest hospitality to persons of distinction. His wife, who had a house at Richmond, is said to have been incurably mean and suspicious. She survived her husband until 22 Aug. 1747, and died intestate, whereupon her property reverted to her sister, Mrs. Dixie Windsor. Shippen, having no issue, left what property he had to dispose of to be divided between his brothers Robert and John. A rough portrait of Shippen was lithographed for Harding's ‘Biographical Mirrour’ (iii. 88).
The politician's next and eldest surviving brother, Robert Shippen (1675–1745), was sent from Stockport grammar school to Oxford, where he matriculated from Merton College on 6 April 1693. He thence graduated B.A. in 1696, but subsequently removed to Brasenose, where he was elected fellow. Having acted as tutor for some years and graduated M.A. (4 July 1699), he was elected professor of music at Gresham College on 4 Dec. 1705, and F.R.S. in the following year. In 1710 he was elected principal of Brasenose College and created D.D. In the same year he married Frances (d. 1728), daughter of Richard Legh of Lyme, and widow of Sir Gilbert Clerke, knt., of Chilcote, and thereupon (3 Oct. 1710) resigned his professorship at Gresham College in favour of his elder brother, Edward (1671–1724), who was also an Oxford man, and had graduated from Brasenose M.A. in 1693, and M.D. in 1699. Robert Shippen's presentation in 1716 to the rectory of Whitechapel elicited a tract entitled ‘The Spiritual Intruder Unmasked,’ in deprecation of his ‘high-flying’ views. Thomas Hearne, though he sympathised with him politically, stigmatised Shippen as sly, wheedling, and worldly; and he attri-
