of them, sober as well as drunk, avow it in the most unreserved manner.
"The House of Commons in those days must have been very different from what it has become in our times, for we see all the distinguished men, Oxford, Bolingbroke and others, seeking to be advanced to the Peerage instead of considering it as a retirement.[1] Sir Robert Walpole raised it not only by talents which were particularly adapted to it, but by using it as one of the best instruments of the false government adopted at the accession of the House of Hanover and persevered in during the reigns of George I. and George II.
"The diary of Lord Melcombe gives not only a very just idea of the manner of carrying on the Government of England during his own time, but of the English Government for a long time to come; in short, till some public event alters the ordinary course of things, allowing for the difference between a quiet Court whose only object was to get through, and such an active and numerous royal family as the present.[2]
"The removal of Lord Granville left the field open for the Pelhams, who had always betrayed Sir Robert Walpole,[3] and had every talent for obtaining Ministry, none for governing the kingdom, except decency, integrity, and Whig principles. Their forte was cunning, plausibility, and cultivation of mankind; they knew all the allures of the Court; they were in the habits of administration; they had been long keeping a party together.
- ↑ This was not the opinion of Sir Robert Walpole. Dr. King, in his Anecdotes of his own time, tells the story how the first time Lord Orford met Lord Bath in the House of Lords, he said to him: "Here we are, my Lord, the two most insignificant fellows in England."
- ↑ "As to the manners of that time, an old servant at Whetham, near Bowood, told me that when her master went up to Parliament, her mistress used to go up to a small farm-house within a quarter of a mile, to stay till Mr. Earnley, her master, came back, and the great house was meanwhile shut up, though no very large one now, notwithstanding that it is considerably enlarged since that time, the beginning of the reign of George II. Lady Shrewsbury was the first who, in Queen Anne's time, began card parties in a small house, which belonged afterwards to General Conway, and now to the Prince. In my time, at Devizes, when families visited each other, the men were shown upstairs to the men, the women to the women. The men immediately sat down to wine or beer, and when they had done sent to tell the women. Several of the best gentlemen, members for the county, drunk nothing but beer." (Note by Lord Shelburne.)
- ↑ Vide Lord Hervey's diary. (Note by Lord Shelburne.)
