Robert Walpole

“ Sir Robert died, foretelling a rebellion, which happened in less than six months, and for predicting which he had been ridiculed: and in detestation of a maxim ascribed to him by his enemies, that every man has his price, the tariff of every Parliament since has been as well known as the price of beef and mutton; and the universal electors, who cry out against that traffic, are not a jot less vendible than their electors.—Was not Sir Robert Walpole an abominable Minister? ”

“ He became the favourite pupil and devoted supporter of Sir Robert Walpole, achieving unequalled and unenviable proficiency in the worst political arts of his master and model. As a speaker he was fluent and self-possessed, imperturbable under attack, audacious in exposition or retort, and able to hold his own against Pitt himself. ”

“ It seems an odd sort of reward for the shrewd, practical, and somewhat coarse-fibred squire-statesman. The close connection between man and the child, civilized man and the savage, is never more clearly illustrated than in the joy and pride which the wisest statesman feels in the wearing of a ribbon or a star. In the next year the King made Walpole a Knight of the Garter; after this honor all other mark of dignity {253} would be but an anti-climax. From the time of his introduction to the Order of the Bath, the great minister ceased to be plain Mr. Walpole, and became Sir Robert Walpole. ”

“ A man who, if in an amateur and dandified way, assisted the advance in literature, was the son of the famous and far from literary Whig Minister of George I. and George II., Sir Robert Walpole. Born at the end of September, 1717, Horace Walpole went to Eton in 1727, where he won the friendship of Gray and prided himself on avoiding cricket and fights with bargees. ”

“ ORFORD, ROBERT WALPOLE, 1st Earl of (1676-1745) , generally known as Sir Robert Walpole, prime minister of England from 1721 to 1742, was the third but eldest surviving son of Robert Walpole, M.P., of Houghton in Norfolk, by Mary, only daughter and heiress of Sir Jefl'ery BurweU, of Rougham, in Suffolk. The father, a jolly old squire of Whig poHtics who revelled in outdoor sport and the pleasures of the table, transmitted to his son the chief traits in his own character. ”

“ Presumption made Sir Robert Walpole many enemies; want of confidence in himself kept from Mr. Pelham many friends. Sir Robert Walpole was content to have one great honest view, and would overlook or trample upon the intermediate degrees. Mr. Pelham could never reach a great view, by stumbling at little ones; he would scruple to give an hundred pound to one opponent, and to buy off another would give up a question [200] that might endanger the nation. ”

“ That Lord had hurried into power on Sir Robert Walpole’s disgrace, and declared he would be a Page of the Back Stairs rather than ever quit the Court again. He had no sooner quitted his party, who had long suspected him, than he openly declared himself a protector of Sir Robert Walpole; and to give the finishing stroke to his interest with the King, drove deep into all his Majesty’s Hanoverian politics, persuaded, in spite of the recent instance before his [168] eyes, that whoever governed the King, must govern the kingdom. ”

“ Horace Walpole, afterwards Earl of Orford, was third son of the celebrated Sir Robert Walpole. He was born on the 5th of October, 1717, and brought into Parliament in 1741, for the borough of Callington. At the general election in 1747, he was returned a second time for the same borough; and in 1754 he came into Parliament for Castle [xiii] Rising. ”

“ Factious hatred, while flinging on his name every other foul aspersion, was compelled to own that he was not a man of blood. This would scarcely seem a high eulogium on a statesman of our times. It was then a rare and honourable distinction. The contests of parties in England had long been carried on with a ferocity unworthy of a civilised people. Sir Robert Walpole was the minister who gave to our Government that character of lenity which it has since generally preserved. It was perfectly known to him that many of his opponents had dealings with the Pretender. ”

“ Sir Robert Walpole loved power so much, that he would not endure a rival; Mr. Pelham loved it so well, that he would endure anything. The one would risk his administration, by driving every considerable man from Court, rather than [232] venture their being well there; the other would employ any means to take able men out of the Opposition, though he ventured their engrossing his authority and outshining his capacity ”

“ He concluded with declaring he liked the Bill, and did not mean to oppose it.
Lord Bath [112] is so known a character, that it is almost needless to draw him. Who does not know that Mr. Pulteney was the great rival of Sir Robert Walpole, whose power he so long opposed, at last overturned, and was undone with it? Who does not [119] know that his virtue failed the moment his inveteracy was gratified? Who does not know that all the patriot’s private vices, which his party would not see while he led them, were exposed, and, if possible, magnified by them the instant he deserted them? ”

“ All these offices had been procured for him by Sir Robert Walpole, and were sinecures, or capable of being executed by deputy.
Finding himself thus provided for and at leisure, the fortunate youth set out on the continental tour which was considered indispensable for a man of fashion. [6] He travelled, as he tells us, at his own expense; and being well able to afford the luxury of a companion, he took with him Thomas Gray the poet, who had been his associate at Eton and Cambridge. The pair visited together various parts of France and Italy, making a stay of some duration at several places. ”

“ One of the latter, Lord Chief-Justice Willes, being complimented on Lord Granville’s return to Court, replied, “He my friend! He is nobody’s friend: I will give you a proof. Sir Robert Walpole had promised me to make my friend Clive one of the King’s Council; but too late! I asked him to request it of Mr. Pelham, who promised, but did not perform. When Lord Granville was in the height of his power, I one day said to him, ‘My Lord, you are going to the King; do ask him to make poor Clive one of his Council.’ He replied, ‘What is it to me who is a Judge, or who a Bishop? ”

“ In 1727, a treaty of mutual guarantee was made with the Court of Wolfenbuttle, and was signed by great men and Whigs, by the Duke of Devonshire, Lord Trevor, Lord Townshend, and by the greatest of all, Sir Robert Walpole: it was debated, written against, yet was never once thought a violation of the Settlement. Afterwards, when a Motion was made for removing Sir Robert Walpole, there wanted no abilities to charge him; there was only wanting fact and evidence; but the House called for facts, not speeches; for evidence, not assertions. No man dreamed of such a breach of the constitution ”

“ Nothing can be permitted to the few; rights and advantages were sent for all: but the few were at the fountain-head in Sir Robert Walpole's time. ”

“ But I was speaking of the great letter writers, commencing with Margaret Paston. Who are our greatest letter writers? Undoubtedly they are Horace Walpole, William Cowper and Edward FitzGerald. You know what a superb picture of eighteenth century life has been presented to us in the nine volumes of correspondence we have by Horace Walpole. [144] Walpole was to all practical purposes an East Anglian, although he p. 145happened to be born in London. His father, the great Sir Robert Walpole, was a notable East Anglian, and he had the closest ties of birth and association with East Anglia. ”

“ Pelham found himself next upon the list, and was recommended to a strong party by their leader. He would never have risen, had he had no other foundation than the House of Commons, and would fall to-morrow if he had no other support; for he must be undone whenever his safety depends upon [233] himself. Sir Robert Walpole’s eloquence was made for use, and he never could shine but when it was necessary [202] he should. He wanted art when he had no occasion for it ”

“ After telling his correspondent in bad blank verse that he dates from the 'shady bowers, nodding groves, and amaranthine shades (?) ' of Twickenham,—'Richmond's near neighbour, where great George the King resides,'—Robinson proceeds to describe his employer as 'the Hon. Horatio Walpole, son to the late great Sir Robert Walpole, who is very studious, and an admirer of all the liberal arts and sciences; amongst the rest he admires printing. ”

“ The kinship with Horace Walpole which has frequently been claimed for Mann has no existence. He was, however, and associate of Walpole as a young man, and it was entirely owing to this intimacy that he was in 1737 offered by Sir Robert Walpole the post of assistant to 'Mr. Fane,' envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary at the court of Florence. ”

“ The commercial passions of the nations succeeded to the military enthusiasm of the past age, and brought their usual fruits of selfish competition and social degradation. Money became the most powerful principle of public and private life: Sir Robert Walpole, a man of perfect honesty himself, founded his ministry on the avowed disbelief of personal honesty among all classes of the people ”

“ All Walpole’s printed books and manuscripts were left to Robert Berry (d. 19th of May 1817) and his two daughters, Mary (1763–1852) and Agnes (1764–1852) , and Mary Berry edited the five volumes of Walpole’s works which were published in 1798. Their friendship had been very dear to the declining days of Walpole, who, it has even been said, wished to marry Mary Berry, By his will each of the ladies obtained a pecuniary legacy of £4000, and for their lives the house and garden, formerly the abode of his friend Kitty Clive, which adjoined Strawberry Hill. ”

“ In the China Room, among great stores of Sèvres and Chelsea, and [211] oriental china, perhaps the greatest curiosity was a couple of Saxon tankards, exactly alike in form and size, which had been presented to Sir Robert Walpole at different times by the mistresses of the first two Georges, the Duchess of Kendal and the Countess of Yarmouth. ”

“ He lived for upwards of five years longer, in the full possession of all his faculties, though suffering great bodily infirmity from the effects of gout, to which he was long a martyr. He died at his house, No. 11, Berkeley Square, on the 2nd of March, 1797, in his eightieth year, and was buried at the family seat of Houghton. With him the male line of Sir Robert Walpole and the title of Orford became extinct. The estate of Houghton descended to the fourth Earl of Cholmondeley, grandson of Horace Walpole’s younger sister Mary, who married the third earl of that ilk. ”

“ He was then made Groom of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales. The old Duchess of Marlborough left him ten thousand pounds, and her grandson, Mr. Spencer, entailed the Sunderland estate upon him after his own son. When Sir Robert Walpole resigned, and Mr. Pulteney was created an Earl, Mr. Pitt said, “He now knew his place in the House of Commons.” He continued in Opposition, and distinguished himself greatly against the Hanover troops, and personally against Lord Granville, till the fall of that Minister. On the coalition, he pretended to desire nothing for himself ”

“ Sir Robert Peel was no satirist or epigrammatist: he was only a statesman in public life: only a virtuous and friendly man in private. Par negotiis, nee supra. Walpole alone possessed his talents for business. But neither Peel nor his family was enriched from the spoils of his country; Walpole spent in building and pictures more than double the value of his hereditary estate, and left the quadruple to his descendants. ”

“ This led to a suggestion which first found definite expression in the Introductory Anecdotes supplied by Lady Louisa Stuart to Lord Wharncliffe's edition of the works of her grandmother, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. [3] It was to the effect that Horace was not the son of Sir Robert Walpole, but of one of his mother's admirers, Carr, Lord Hervey, elder brother of Pope's 'Sporus,' the Hervey of the Memoirs. It is advanced in favour of this supposition that his likeness to the Herveys, both physically and mentally, was remarkable ”

“ Failing health added its weight to the scale. In October Walpole tells his correspondent that [62] he had 'been very near sealing his letter with black wax,' for his father had been in danger of his life, but was recovering, though he is no longer the Sir Robert that Mann once knew. He who formerly would snore before they had drawn his curtains, now never slept above an hour without waking ”

“ The characters who interest us in history and literature, on the other hand, are perpetually giving the lie to the formulae we invent, and are bound to invent, for them. They give us pleasure not by confirming us, but by surprising us. It seems to me absurd, then, to regard Walpole’s air of indifference as the only real thing about him and to question his raptures. From his first travels among the Alps with Gray down to his senile letters to Hannah More about the French Revolution, we see him as a man almost hysterical in the intensity of his sensations, whether of joy or of horror. ”

“ He will teach, with something more than official conviction, the nothingness of earthly things; and he will feel something more than private disgust if his meritorious efforts in directing men’s attention to another world are not rewarded by substantial preferment in this. His secular man believes in cambric bands and silk stockings as characteristic attire for “an ornament of religion and virtue;” hopes courtiers will never forget to copy Sir Robert Walpole ”