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NEW EDITIONS OF 
 
 POPULAR HISTORICAL NOVELS, 
 
 Illustrative of English Society and Manners, under different Sovereigns. 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "STRAWBERRY H I L L." 
 
 I. 
 
 GEORGE THE FIRST : 
 
 MAIDS OF HONOUR. 
 
 " Certainly superior to the run of its class now-a-days." — Examiner- 
 " One of the best historical novels which has appeared for many years." — 
 Messenger, 
 
 II. 
 
 CHARLES THE SECOND I 
 
 SIR ROGER DE COVERLET. 
 
 " A tale of the most popular class. It is full of incident, and replete with 
 clever and characteristic sketches of historical personages." — New Monthly 
 Magazine. 
 
 III. 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH I 
 
 THE YOUTH OF SHAKSPEARE. 
 
 " The wit, freshness, and historical adornments of these volumes, must 
 gain for the author rich and honest praise." — Age. 
 
 IV. 
 
 QUEEN ELIZABETH : 
 
 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS FRIENDS, 
 
 " The care with which every part of this work is finished, deserves recogni- 
 tion. A raciness and geniality of spiiit pervade its gayer scenes, which are 
 likely to recommend it to all who love to look back to the merry days of Old 
 England." — Athenceum. 
 
 V. 
 
 JAMES THE first: 
 
 THE SECRET PASSION. 
 
 " A novel of rare interest and beauty. We unhesitatingly place it in the 
 first class of historical novels." — Sunday Times. 
 
 LOXDON: 
 HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, 
 
 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 
NEW WORKS OF FICTION, 
 
 JUST PUBLISHED BY MR. COLBUKN. 
 (To he had at all the Libraries.^ 
 
 I. 
 FATHER EUSTACE; 
 
 A TALE OF THE JESUITS. 
 
 By Mrs. Trollofe. 3 vols. 
 
 II. 
 
 MEN OF CAPITAL. 
 
 By Mrs. Gore, 
 
 Authoress of " The Banker's V.'ife," &c. 3 vols. 
 
 III. 
 
 L E X T I X E. 
 
 By Mrs. Maberly, 
 
 Authoress of " Emily," &c. 3 vols. 
 
 IV. 
 ADVEXTURES OF CAPTAIX OSULLIVAX; 
 
 Cn'IL, MILITARY, AND MATRIMONIAL. 
 
 By W. H. Maxwell, Esq., 
 Author of " Stories of Waterloo," &c. 3 vols. 
 
 "Captain O'SuUivan's career abounds with adventure, in which peril 
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 fashion to attribute to the sons of the Irish soil better pourtrayed than 
 in this ytor\i." —Dublin Evening Packet. 
 
 V. 
 
 COXFESSIOXS OF A PRETTY WOMAN 
 By Miss Pardoe, 
 
 Authoress of " The City of the Sultan," &c. 3 vols. 
 
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 M A R S T X ; 
 
 or, the soldier and statesman. 
 
 By the Rev. G. Croly, LL.D., 
 
 Author of "Salathicl," &c. 3 vols. 
 
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 romance of its fiction ; the thoughtful for its sentiments and its principles ; 
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POPULAR NOVEL S. 
 
 Vil. 
 
 EMILIA W Y N D H A ^I. 
 
 By the Author of 
 
 " Two Old Men's Tales," " Mount Sorel," &c. 3 vols. 
 
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 By Mrs. Troixope. 3 vols. 
 
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 IX. 
 
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 years." — Britannia. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE MASTER PASSION; 
 
 THE GAMBLING-HOUSE AT BEUSSELS ; THE LOVE DRAUGHT ; 
 
 AND OTHEE TALES. 
 
 By Thomas Colley Gkattax, Esq., 
 
 Author of " Highways and Bvways," " The Heiress of Bruges," 
 
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 XI. 
 
 THE ATTRACTIVE MA N. 
 By Mrs. Troulope. 3 vols. 
 
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 XII. 
 
 STRATHERN; 
 
 A STORY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 
 
 By the Cotintess of Blessin'Gton". Emljellished with a fine 
 Portrait of the Authoress, Irom a Drawing by E. Landseer, B. A^ 
 
 Also, Just Published, 
 THE ROMANCE O E W A R 
 
 OR, THE HIGHLANDERS IN SPAIN. 
 By James Grant, Esq., late 62nd Regt. 3 vols. 
 
POPULAR HISTORICAL ROMANCES, 
 
 JUST PUBLISHED BY MK. COLBURN. 
 {To he had at all the Libraries.) 
 
 I. 
 C^SAR BORGIA, 
 
 By the Author of " Whitefriars." 3 vols. 
 
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 By H. W. Herbert, Esq. Author of *' Oliver CromTvell," &c. 
 
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 (CAROLINE MATILDA, SISTER OF GEORGE III.) 
 
 Au Historical Romance. Founded on the Private Communica- 
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 " A narrative of the highest interest." — Athenaum. 
 
 V. 
 
 DUNSTER CASTLE. 
 
 A TALE OF THE GREAT REBELLION. 
 
 Ry J. T. Hewlett, M.A. 3 vols. 
 
 " The author of ' Peter Priggins,' and ' Parsons and Widows,' has esta- 
 blished a reputation which ' Dunster Castle ' will extend and confirm. The 
 entire work has all the vigour of a master's hand, and we unhesitatingly 
 pronounce ' Dunster Castle' not only the best of Mr. Hewlett's novels, but 
 among the best of modern works of fiction." — John Bull. 
 
 Also just published, 
 
 THE WILD IRISH GIRL. 
 
 By Lady Morgan. 
 
 With a New Preface and Notes. 
 
 Foi-ming the New Volume of " Colburn's Standard Novels." 
 
 Complete for 6s. bound, with Portrait. 
 
 H. COLBURN, Publisher, 13, Great Marlborough Street. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL; 
 
 AN 
 
 HISTORICAL XOYEL. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 SHAKSPEARE AND HIS FRIENDS," "MAIDS OF HONOUR, 
 " SIR ROGER DE COVERLET," &c. 
 
 " Here are no assassins, no poisoners, no Neros, 
 Borgias, Catilines, Richards of York ! Here are 
 the foibles of an age — no very bad one." 
 
 Horace Walfole. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL I. 
 
 LONDON : 
 HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER, 
 
 GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET. 
 1847. 
 
HATTOK & CO., PRINTERS, KING STREET, COVENT GAROKN^. 
 
'y-» 
 
 V') 
 
 IXTRODUCTIOX 
 
 
 ^ *' Going I Going! Gentlemen and Ladies, 
 
 7 for tlie last time of offering this lot. For 
 
 ^ the last time. Xo advance upon this bid- 
 
 {■- ding? Going — going — gone!" 
 ^>; Such was the speech which greeted tlie 
 
 ^ ears of the Author, from a clear sonorous 
 
 ^ voice, as, early in the month of May 1842, 
 
 4 he entered one of the chambers of the 
 
 J most celeljrated, if not the most admired of 
 
 ^ modern structures. He was enjoying a 
 
 A 2 
 
IV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 distinction which would have been denied a 
 stranger half a century before. Xor did he 
 value it less, because it was shared by a 
 multitude. He was a visitor at Strawberry 
 Hill. He made one of an eager, curious 
 crowd, whose onlv letter of introduction 
 appeared in the shape of an auctioneer's 
 catalogue. 
 
 Even when passing through the monastic 
 entrance into the hall, he could hardly be- 
 lieve, much less reconcile himself to the 
 astounding fact, that he was there — not to 
 look and marvel, but to bid and buy. All 
 the treasures of Strawberry Hill, literary, 
 antiquarian, and artistical, were for sale to 
 the highest bidder. That quaint edifice, on 
 which the author of "The Castle of Otranto" 
 had .lavished the resources of his gothic 
 imagination, was to be stripped to the bare 
 walls: those matchless decorations, which 
 at so vast an amount of labour and expense 
 were sought for and collected from every 
 available quarter in Europe, were to be dis- 
 
INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 tributed amongst a thousand owners, at the 
 best price that, could be got for them. 
 
 It was impossible for any historical student 
 to have entered the place, without recalling 
 to mind some of the numerous associations 
 that marked it as the head quarters of wit 
 and fashion in the last century : but as well 
 as having been the rendezvous of the beau- 
 ties, the wits, and the gossips of the age, it 
 had been made equally famous as a sort of 
 nursery of Letters, where certain of its most 
 delicate plants had for a considerable period 
 been carefully reared and successfully planted 
 out. The Strawberry Hill personages, in 
 their claims to celebrity, found rivals only 
 in the Strawberry Hill press. 
 
 Could a change more violent be conceived 
 than that which had fallen upon it, in the 
 course of the half century that had elapsed 
 since the death of its architect and founder ? 
 The visitor, instead of having to pay his 
 compliments to the greatest of fashionable 
 authors, found himself the object of curious 
 
VI IXTKODUCTION. 
 
 scrutiny from the greatest of fashionable 
 auctioneers. The historical pictures, the 
 rare objects of vertu^ the choice furniture, 
 the admirable librar}^, were about to melt 
 away before the wand of that potent magician, 
 whose *' Going, going, gone," is a form of con- 
 juration more certain in its effects than lips 
 of maoi or ma^ister ever uttered. The fair 
 AValdegraves, the sparkling Selwyns, the 
 loquacious Suffolks, had given place to a 
 mob of picture-dealers, booksellers, and 
 curiosity hunters; and piquant scandal, 
 brilliant repartee, and agreeable anecdote, 
 had had to make room for vulgar jokes, 
 common-place puns,andflippant pleasantries. 
 It was a change indeed ! 
 
 Full of those extremely philosophical 
 reflections that would naturally suggest 
 themselves under such circumstances, the 
 Author was examining a group of miniatures 
 that had been tastefully arranged in the 
 Long Gallery, when he was struck by one 
 that seemed to demand attention, by an 
 
INTRODUCTION. VU 
 
 expression of features that would have ren- 
 dered it prominent among a thousand. It 
 was the face of a young and peculiarly 
 handsome female, in which there was imme- 
 diately recognizable that rare combination 
 of commanding intellect, with the most femi- 
 nine softness and grace. Such a face could 
 never have been passed ^vithout remark: 
 but, mdependently of the general expression, 
 there was something in the look of those 
 most intellectual eyes so full of melancholy 
 tenderness, that it was impossible to meet it 
 once without soon desirino; to see it ao^ain 
 and again. 
 
 The face was one that, more perfectly than 
 any other, realized the bright creations of 
 Shakspeare; it would have become the im- 
 passioned Juliet, or the tender Desdemona, 
 or the graceful Imogen, or the exquisite 
 ^liranda, equally well, because there was 
 palpably so much of sentiment, and romance, 
 and sympathy, in its general expression, as 
 can only be said to exist in their most perfect 
 
viii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 proportions, in these examples of tlie portrait 
 gallery of our great photographist. 
 
 It was a long time before he proceeded on 
 the usual tour of inspection. He lingered 
 very much beyond the period allowed at 
 auctions to anticipated purchasers. Never- 
 theless, he found himself inattentive to the 
 claims of the thousand desirable objects 
 which surrounded him wherever he moved. 
 Art and Vertu^ Antiquity and Learning, put 
 forth their attractions in vain. He was 
 insensible to the merits of Sir Joshua and 
 HoDfarth — the charms of the immortal ena- 
 mels he passed, unregardful of the fame of 
 Petitot and Boit — he was blind to the value 
 of the Faenza ware of Robbia and Bernard 
 Galizzi — the rare workmanship of Cellini 
 and Jean de Bologna were to him no more 
 than the chasings of ordinary workers in 
 metal — the precious manufactures of 
 Limoges, of Sevres, and Dresden — the 
 inimitable missals enriched by Julio Clovio, 
 and RafFaelle — the matchless glass, glowing 
 
INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 with the never-fading colours of Jean 
 Cousin — the wonderful bronzes, the admir- 
 able marbles, the magnificent armour, and 
 the costly decorations of various descriptions 
 that filled every chamber — were of no 
 more interest to him than the heaped up 
 lumber of a AYardour- Street curiosit}^ 
 shop. 
 
 The house seemed to afford every phase 
 of female loveliness. The Beauties of the 
 Courts of England, France and Italy, for 
 nearly three centuries, had smiled in their 
 most becoming dresses — but a company that 
 boasted of having found lovers in Kings, 
 Princes, and Grand Dukes, could not divert the 
 attention of a humble scholar : those graces 
 which had been immortalized by Holbein and 
 Janet, Yasari and Vandyke, Mignard, Lely, 
 Kneller, Jar\4s, Eckhardt, Richardson, Rey- 
 nolds, and a score more of less fashionable 
 limners, were, in his estimation, of no ac- 
 count, in comparison with a mere drawing 
 by some artist whose name apparently had 
 
X INTRODUCTION. 
 
 been too obscure to demand tlie slightest 
 attempt at preservation. 
 
 Wonderful, it may be thought, must have 
 been the attractions that left the spectator 
 indifferent among Ninon de TEnclos, Bianca 
 Capella, the innumerable Yenuses of Louis 
 le Grand and Charles the Second, and the 
 Gunnings, the Waldegraves, and the Berry s 
 — the more respectable beauties of a more 
 respectable age: wonderful indeed they 
 were. At the earliest opportunity he re- 
 turned to the portrait. Admiration was 
 now mingled with curiosity. It was strange 
 that where every face possessed a name, and 
 some a biography, the most charming of 
 them all should have found no other record 
 than the equally brief and unsatisfatory 
 ''Portrait of a Lady" — that legend sacred 
 to Royal- Academy inanities, in Court dresses 
 and opera mantles, and British- Artist vul- 
 garities in satin and point lace. 
 
 He was ultimately so fortunate as to en- 
 list the services of an elderly person, whom 
 
INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 he believed to be one of the auctioneer's 
 employes. AVhether he was broker, an- 
 tiquary, picture dealer, or bookseller, the 
 author could not satisfy himself; for, with 
 the jargon of all these trades, his conversa- 
 tion gave evidence of as intimate an ac- 
 quaintance with pursuits that had not the 
 least connection with either of them. He 
 wore a loose over- coat, of a fashion nearly 
 half a century the antecedent of Paletots 
 and Taglionis, over an equally loose and 
 rusty suit of black, that seemed to possess 
 an extraordinary number of pockets, into 
 the depths of which the wearer's hand 
 frequently dived during his discourse, for 
 what seemed a most singular form of il- 
 lustration. 
 
 He talked of auctions, and he made a 
 plunge into one side of his great coat, and 
 brought forth a bundle of cuttings from 
 newspapers of various dates, of accounts of 
 all the celebrated sales that had taken place 
 during the last century. From auctions he 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 insensibly glided to exhibitions, and lo! 
 from another depth came an equally for- 
 midable heap, respecting all the public 
 entertainments of London, for a similar 
 period. Shakspeare of course was started ; 
 and the lucubrations of the editors of a 
 dozen papers, in the shape of a third bundle, 
 saw the light. Shakspeare led to Garrick — 
 Garrick to Junius — Junius to Wilkes, and 
 Wilkes to Walpole; and at every change 
 came forth its appropriate heap of printed 
 slips, from side pocket, back, breast, and 
 half a dozen other places, the exact position 
 of which it is not so easy to indicate; and 
 they came forth as naturally as though 
 forming a necessary part of the discourse. 
 
 Had the subject been the voyage of 
 Jonah, or the Siege of Troy, the building of 
 Solomon's Temple, or the apotheosis of the 
 Man in the Moon, doubtless a supply of the 
 same familiar excerptce would have been as 
 readily produced. 
 
 Not without hope that his companion 
 
INTRODUCTION. xlii 
 
 might have led his industrious scissors in 
 the direction of anonymous portraits, the 
 author directed his attention to the fair un- 
 known that had so deeply interested him ; 
 but for once his capacious pockets remained 
 undisturbed, and as though wanting the 
 material which supported his conversation, 
 he became singularly uncommunicative. He, 
 however, unceremoniously made use of a 
 privilege, the which, as he was allowed to 
 exercise it unchallenged, proved his influence 
 or confidential position. Pie took down the 
 picture for a nearer examination. There 
 was nothing on its surface, and on a cursory 
 examination there appeared as little on the 
 back, likely to enlighten either of them ; but 
 on a more rigid scrutiny, and after care- 
 fully -sviping away the dust, some characters 
 became legible, which at last the author 
 made out to consist of the followino^ words, 
 written in a small Itahan hand : — 
 
XIV INTKODUCTION. 
 
 The discoverer turned to inform liis com- 
 panion of his good fortune ; but he had dis- 
 appeared. He looked round and beheld him 
 at a distance, engaged in what appeared a 
 most confidential discourse with a ^Minister 
 of State, well known for his taste in art and 
 literature. It was evident by the bundle 
 he was in the act of producing from one of 
 his multitudinous pockets, that he was too 
 satisfactorily occupied to care to be dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 The portrait was replaced, after it had 
 afforded the most convincing evidence that 
 it contained no other record of the beautiful 
 original or of her history. Another ear- 
 nest survey of those bright features sub- 
 jected the author, more than ever, to the 
 influence of that tender eloquence which 
 flashed so irresistibly from beneath her 
 silken lashes. 
 
 There was something in that brief in- 
 scription which seemed to confirm what the 
 touching expression of the face suggested. 
 
IXTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 The more he regarded this interesting por- 
 trait, the more the imagination employed 
 itself in speculations concerning the fair 
 creature it represented. He could not but 
 fancy that he had arrived at what might 
 be styled " a great fact" in his personal his- 
 tor}', ^Yhich had escaped the vigilance of 
 even the ablest of the Walpole commenta- 
 tors; and that he had obtained an insiirht 
 into the character of the retired states- 
 man, which ought to invest the walls of 
 " Strawberry Hill" with more romance than 
 ever existed within those of the Castle of 
 Otranto. 
 
 These speculations have shaped them- 
 selves into a continuous narrative, in which 
 the best read scholar vn]l find some thin'^s 
 stated of which he can have no previous 
 knowledge. The author is not without a 
 hope that this prospect of novelty will be 
 deemed a recommendation; but he is well 
 aware, that the story contains too many 
 appeals to the reader's patience, to render 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 liim over-sanguine as to the result of an 
 advantage so equivocal. Merely begging it 
 to be understood that, notwithstanding its 
 title, his work is to be regarded rather as 
 an illustration of the founder of the struc- 
 ture so designated, than of the place which 
 must always be classed among the most 
 popular of his works, he leaves " Straw- 
 berry Hill" to the indulgence of those who 
 may be induced to read its pages. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER 1. 
 
 A CONTESTED ELECTION. 
 
 " Hurrah for Walpole I" 
 " Walpole and the Constitution !" 
 '' Xo Walpole !" " No Placeman !" '' No 
 Hanover Fiats !" 
 " Brio^frs for ever !" 
 
 Such were the most prominent, among an 
 infinite number of very opposite exclama- 
 tions, that burst from the Avell practised 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
2 STRAWBERRY UILL. 
 
 throats of a very noisy portion of that mul- 
 titudinous firm, Messrs. Tag, Rag, and Bob- 
 tail, whilst, as usual, they were playing the 
 double part of actors and spectators in a 
 contested election. For it so happens that 
 the free people of England are in the habit 
 of making extremely free when about exercis- 
 ing that invaluable feature in their freedom, 
 the privilege of electing a fit and proper person 
 to be their representative in the Imperial 
 Parliament; and at the period to which we 
 are referring — about the middle of the last 
 century — this privilege, judging from the 
 use made of it, was being exercised to its 
 fullest extent, and with the most intense ap- 
 preciation of its advantages. 
 
 A certain obscure little market town in 
 Cornwall was then in the full enjoyment of 
 the Saturnalia with which its population 
 celebrated the occasion of contributing their 
 quota to the legislative wisdom of the coun- 
 try ; and by a very singular coincidence it so 
 happened, that this preparation for making 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 3 
 
 the laws was always considered the best pos- 
 sible opportunity for breaking them. At 
 such a time a great deal was sure to be 
 heard respecting free and enlightened Eng- 
 lishmen, liberty and patriotism, which, as 
 soon became manifest, was capable of but 
 one interpretation, and this formed the dis- 
 creditable triad — drunkenness, bribery, and 
 bloodshed. 
 
 The town shewed signs of activity similar 
 to those exhibited bv a hive of bees, thrown 
 into extraordinary commotion by being sud- 
 denly upset. Flags of all hues and sizes, 
 joined with a liberal supply of laurel-leaves, 
 flowers, and ribbons, waved from everv win- 
 dow, giving the whole street an extremely 
 parti-coloured aspect — as though the good 
 people thought they required a suit of mot- 
 ley to express how completely they were 
 playing the fool. 
 
 There were not wanting a sufficient num- 
 ber of fiofures to o^ive life to the architecture 
 of the place ; for every window was crowded 
 
 B 2 
 
4 STRAWBERKY HILL. 
 
 Avitli parties drinking, smoking, singing, and 
 shouting — sometimes, it seemed, for their own 
 satisfaction only — sometimes, when the case- 
 ment was closer to the ground, to the satis- 
 faction of the equally restless, equally noisy, 
 and much more mischievous crowd below. 
 
 Now and then there would be a rush to 
 the windows, to behold a passing procession, 
 lieaded by a blustering drum and a couple 
 of squeaking fifes — the military band in at- 
 tendance upon a regiment of truculent look- 
 ing heroes, in very dirty coats, and still 
 dirtier linen, sporting with the same easy 
 dignity their cudgels and their colours, and 
 giving the most unequivocal demonstrations 
 that they were as full of patriotism as of 
 beer. Over their heads waved a prodigious 
 banner, displaying the colours of one of the 
 candidates, with a motto equally character- 
 istic; and every now and then this was 
 waved in a manner that very much excited 
 the raptures of that heroic assembly, and 
 also very much threatened the eyes of those 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 5 
 
 who chanced to be within reach of its un- 
 steady supporters. 
 
 Many an encouraging sound came from 
 the groups at one or the other of the capa- 
 cious bow- windows, whence mugs of beer 
 would occasionally be thrust forth to refresh 
 the energies of some popular leader. It 
 would so occur, however, that at otlKT 
 houses, where a different coloured ribbon 
 happened to be sported, the only recognition 
 the noisy vagabonds received came from 
 some reckless opponent, in the shape of a 
 cutting jibe, or a contemptuous exclamation. 
 Lucky was the wight if he escaped with a 
 handful of mud in his face ; but usually such 
 an interruption was the signal for the com- 
 mencement of hostilities ; the house w^as at- 
 tacked, and in as little time as is taken to 
 describe it, every pane of^ glass smashed to 
 atoms. The row brought down the forces 
 of the opposite party, cudgels began to play, 
 heads to break, " Walpole for ever!" was 
 shouted as fiercely as some hundred throats. 
 
b STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 hoarse with bawling and drunk with beer, 
 could shout, and was answered as fiercely 
 by shrieks of " Briggs for ever ! " in quite 
 as drunken and as discordant a chorus. 
 
 One of the contending forces would, after 
 a while, give way, closely followed by their 
 victorious opponents, leaving over the well- 
 contested field a score or two of disabled 
 followers, who lost little time in endeavour- 
 ing to get their broken heads tinkered at the 
 nearest surgeon's. The place left vacant 
 would then be filled by a couple of stento- 
 rian ballad-sino^ers, chauntin*]^ some election 
 squib bitterly commenting upon one of the 
 candidates. Another crowd would soon col- 
 lect, the jest would be received with vocifer- 
 ous applause by one party, and with ill-con- 
 cealed hostility by the other. Something 
 was sure to be said by the Blues, to which 
 the Yellows were not inclined to submit — the 
 ballad singers were shoved into the gutter — 
 the cudgels were again in play — more heads 
 were broken, more plasters were applied for. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 7 
 
 and, in due time, once more the street was 
 allowed an interval of quiet. 
 
 Such was the state of Callington in the 
 year of our Lord 1741; and having given 
 some description of tlie sort of constituency 
 that were exercising their franchise, it is 
 necessary we should be equally faithful in 
 our delineation of the candidates who sever- 
 ally desired to be their representative. 
 These consisted of two — and persons more 
 diametrically opposed to each other, there 
 was scarcely a possibility of finding through- 
 out the three kingdoms. 
 
 The popular candidate was a ^Ir. Jonathan 
 Briggs, by his familiars commonly called 
 *' Jolly Jonathan ;" a heavy, clumsy, broad- 
 faced and large-limbed owner, or rather 
 part-owner, of a productive copper mine that 
 was worked in the neighbourhood — affording 
 employment to a vast number of the very 
 hard-working, big- fisted, coarse -featured, 
 clumsy-limbed, inhabitants of the district. 
 His ample shoulders were encased in a coat 
 
8 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 of coarse broad-cloth, that appeared to have 
 been made in those days of remote history 
 in which we are assured there were giants; 
 and the buttons, that might upon an emer- 
 gency have done duty as saucepan lids, cor- 
 responded with the dimensions of the cuffs, 
 the skirts, and the other portions of this 
 voluminous piece of drapery. 
 
 The waistcoat, of crimson cloth, embroi- 
 dered at the edges, was only slightly less 
 liberal in its dimensions than the coat — 
 for it reached very nearly to the knees of 
 his serviceable buck- skin breeches, within 
 an inch or so of the yellow worsted hose, 
 that seemed to keep the wearer's fleshy legs 
 in a state of the most covetable comfort. A 
 full wig, a clumsy three-cornered hat, and a 
 pair of heavy broad-toed shoes, fastened witli 
 large silver buckles, completed his costume. 
 
 Such was the outward man of ''Jolly 
 Jonathan." Imagine such a man, totally 
 devoid of that part of education then 
 kno\vn by the name of " breeding," — that is 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 9 
 
 to say, as rough, unpolished, and rude, as a 
 Cornish mine-o^vner, of some fifty years of 
 age, could be in the middle of the eighteentii 
 century — downright, independent, preju- 
 diced, and fearless, and with no pretensions to 
 any talent, beyond that persevering industry 
 which had raised him from an humble origin 
 to opulence. A man who united in himself 
 every possible description of opposite cha- 
 racteristics — a hearty lover of freedom, yet 
 a tyrant in the exercise of his wealth — a 
 sound Protestant, yet a secret well-msher to 
 the Catholic Prince of the Stuart family theu 
 in exile, — and a bitter enemy to the whole 
 tribe of creatures in power, yet quite willing 
 to join in ousting them from their places to 
 make way for men whose government was 
 likely to be a great deal more difficult to 
 bear. 
 
 ^\Tien we say that Jonathan Briggs was 
 bigoted, obstinate, prejudiced, and ex- 
 tremely ignorant, we shall have little more 
 to add to make the portrait complete ; but 
 
 B 3 
 
10 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 we must not foroet to <nye him credit for 
 perfect honesty of purpose. ]\[an or boy, 
 Jolly Jonathan would have scorned sailing 
 under false colours — he never concealed his 
 detestation of the Whigs — nay, he had re- 
 solved to contest the election of his native 
 town with the son of the all-powerful minis- 
 ter, Sir Robert Walpole, to afford himself 
 an opportunity for declaring, more fully than 
 he had ever been able to do at the Aveekly 
 meetings of the highly respectable Club at 
 the Red Lion, of which he had been chair- 
 man for the last twenty years, that intense 
 detestation he had always felt for their prin- 
 ciples — after the entrance of the third bowl 
 of punch. 
 
 His opponent was a young man of slight 
 figure and pale complexion, dressed very 
 elegantly in a claret-coloured coat, embroi- 
 dered to the bottom and at the cuffs; a 
 rich satin vest elaborately flowered; velvet 
 breeches and fine cotton stockings, with 
 shoes covering the instep, where each was 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 11 
 
 fastened with a silver buckle ; delicate ruffles 
 at liis wrists, a light sword at his side, and his 
 hair powdered, tied behind, and surmount- 
 ed by a richly-triinnied hat of the last fash- 
 ion, proclaimed him a beau of the jfdv 
 1741. 
 
 There were many other points of dissimi- 
 litude between them, besides dress. The 
 younger candidate had received the beneht 
 of a classical education; had enjoyed his 
 Yirgil and his cricket-match at Eton; had 
 had the advanta^'es of EucHd and cock-fifrht- 
 ing at Cambridge; since when, he had still 
 further enriched his mind by foreign travel, 
 ha\dng journeyed from Paris to Rome -^dth 
 a very different result from what was expe- 
 rienced by the less fortunate tourist wh(j 
 travelled from Dan to Beersheba — for he had 
 gathered as he went a tolerable collection of 
 coins and scandal, medals and bon mots^ 
 old pictures, new opera tunes, and the best 
 authenticated modem antiques; with jests, 
 anecdotes, satires and lampoons in great va- 
 
12 STRAWBEKRY HILL. 
 
 riety, and every thing necessary to set up a 
 man of fashion as a virtuoso and a wit. There 
 was a mehmcholy expression in those pale 
 and thoughtful features, that gave the im- 
 pression of one rushing upon a desperate en- 
 terprise to escape from the pressure of feel- 
 ings too painful to be t(jlerated, — as though 
 the young adventurer sought in the tumult 
 of politics, oblivion of some misfortune that 
 had overtaken him elsewhere. Nevertheless 
 there was a smile upon his lip. A world 
 of cutting ridicule and biting sarcasm lurked 
 in that smile. It was evident that he strove 
 to conceal the bitterness of his feelings under 
 cover of a jest. 
 
 Such was Horace Walpole, the third son 
 of Sir Robert Walpole, at the opening of 
 our story, in the zenith of his fame as a 
 powerful minister and an able statesman — 
 in the zenith too of his unpopularity, as the 
 inventor of innumerable imposts, and a fa- 
 vourer of monopohes, standing armies, des- 
 potic laws, and Hanoverian interests. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. lo 
 
 As we have said, of the two, the fonner was 
 tlie popular candidate ; but then his opponent 
 had many powerful recommendations — he 
 had all the government interest — he was 
 supported by the noblemen and gentlemen 
 of the neiorhbourhood who held the s^reatest 
 influence, and was possessed of many quali- 
 fications for the office he sought, to which 
 the uneducated mine-owner could have my 
 pretensions. 
 
 We must now venture to carry the reader 
 with us to the hustings, in the presence of 
 a boisterous mob of Cornish miners, agri- 
 cultural labourers, and a vast mass of the 
 humbler classes of the population of the 
 town and neighbourhood, Avith a banner or 
 other spnbol of party here and there rising 
 above their closely-packed heads, which was 
 not unfrequently of such an insulting na- 
 ture, as to excite commotions that placed 
 both the symbol and its bearer in very con- 
 siderable jeopardy. 
 
 The hustings was a platform raised in 
 
14 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 the most open part of the town, at a suffi- 
 cient elevation to allow those who were 
 desirous of addressing " the free and en- 
 lightened electors," to be seen at any rea- 
 sonable distance. At the present moment 
 it seemed as crowded as though the town 
 intended to supply the whole complement 
 of members required for the business of le- 
 gislation, instead of limiting its quota to 
 one. 
 
 A considerable degree of speechifying had 
 been going on, of that peculiar kind in de- 
 mand on such occasions. 
 
 Mr. Jonathan Briggs was proposed and 
 seconded by his staunch friends Captain 
 Pincher and Orlando Budge, Esq. — the 
 one a snappish sea captain, whose wooden 
 leg secured him almost as much respect 
 in his native town as his moderate pension ; 
 the other a retired draper, who, having 
 inherited a considerable fortune from a dis- 
 tant relation, availed himself of every op- 
 portunity of pushing himself forward, un- 
 
STRAAVBERRY HILL. 15 
 
 der the impression that his property gave 
 him the right to consider himself — which he 
 was extremely ambitious of being thought — 
 '' a public character." 
 
 The proposer and seconder of the son of 
 the Prime Minister were, as mioht be ex- 
 pected, very different personages — the first 
 being the Right Hon. Lord Tremayne, of 
 Tremayne Castle, a very great nobleman in 
 Cornwall, a man even of some consequence 
 in London, but of very limited capacity any 
 where; and Sir Harry Pendives, Baronet, 
 of Pendives Court, possessed of twenty thou- 
 sand a year, a pack of fox-hounds, and a 
 capacity which, where the bottle was con- 
 cerned, Avould put to confusion the best 
 head that ever sat upon a wise man's shoul- 
 ders. 
 
 Their orations had been spoken to an ad 
 libitum accompaniment of interruptions of 
 eveiy description, from the ludicrous excla- 
 mation intended to raise a horse-lauo-h, to 
 the less agreeable missile that midit close 
 
16 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 an eye or level a row of teeth, according as 
 to whether the taste of the operator lay in 
 the direction of damaged eyes or fractured 
 masticators. These, however, were experi- 
 mental demonstrations. The estimable con- 
 stituents of Callington were too well aware 
 of their duty to their country, to be prodi- 
 gal of their cabbage-stumps to personages 
 of such secondary interest. 
 
 A shout that must have " rent the skies," 
 if they had not that day been made of par- 
 ticularly stout materials, arose in the air, 
 as the well-known figure of Jolly Jona- 
 than advanced to the front of the hus- 
 tings, bearing in one of his prodigious hands 
 the long clay pipe with which he had been 
 regaling himself while waiting his turn to 
 speak. It was evident Jonathan did not 
 want friends — and very vociferous friends 
 they were — but then it may as well be 
 known that their *' most sweet voices'' were 
 justly his due, inasmuch as he had paid the 
 very handsome sum of two shillings a-head. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 17 
 
 and beer a discretion^ for the very respect- 
 able row in his favour they were then creat- 
 ing. 
 
 Mr. Briggs began his oration with that 
 free-and-easy assurance that might have 
 been expected from so practised an orator 
 at the Red Lion. He commenced by ex- 
 plaining his desire to become the Represen- 
 tative of his native to^vn, and his qualifica- 
 tions for such an office. His lanoruao^e was 
 particularly homely, Avith which it must be 
 acknowledged his manners completely cor- 
 responded. For him Lord Chesterfield had 
 lived in vain; and though justice compels 
 us to say that this could not be said of 
 Lindley Murray, it was simply because, as 
 yet, Lindley Murray had not lived at all. 
 
 It was a practice in the feudal times for 
 the warder of a castle, before he entered 
 into a parley with any one approaching the 
 gates, to "blow his horn." To this chival- 
 rous fashion the stalwart mine-owner had 
 recourse, in a manner as singular as it was 
 
18 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 picturesque, as soon as he began to find that 
 his communications with the many headed 
 mass before him were not so rapid as he 
 desired. A speckled blue cotton handker- 
 chief was hawled from the depths of his 
 capacious pocket, directly he felt himself at 
 a loss for an idea, into the folds of Avhich 
 his nose sunk like a best bower anchor into 
 a mud bank ; and having perpetrated a flou- 
 rish that must have been heard by the most 
 distant of his audience, he took up the thread 
 of his discourse as if it had got disentangled 
 by the extraordinary exertions he had made 
 to clear his head. 
 
 Though some specimen of his rhetorical 
 powers may be expected from us, we are 
 afraid we are not capable of doing them jus- 
 tice, for most assuredly his was a species of 
 oratory of which we have no examples, either 
 amongst the philippics of Demosthenes or the 
 orations of Cicero. 
 
 "Friends and countrymen," continued the 
 candidate, his face like a peony under a 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 19 
 
 broilinof sun, "brave and enliohtened En^- 
 lishmen — men worthy of the glorious name 
 of free-born Britons, — victory is certain if 
 you shews yourselves worthy of it. Let 
 every one what has a vote lose no time in 
 registering it in my favour. Remember my 
 principles ! Remember the ground I stands 
 upon!" 
 
 Here a stentorian voice, in a scarcely 
 intelligible Cornish dialect, acquainted the 
 orator that there was no fear of that being 
 forgotten, as long as the plank on which his 
 honour's feet rested remained visible. 
 
 "Remember," continued the speaker, after 
 the laugh had subsided, " we are not slaves, 
 but Britons." The distinction was not ex- 
 plained. " Remember our rights, our liber- 
 ties, our" — Here the orator dived into the 
 recesses of his blue pennant, with an effect 
 that prodigiously startled an old dame in an 
 opposite balcony, who looked as if apprehen- 
 sive of an earthquake. 
 
 " Xever forget who are the enemies of the 
 
20 STRA^VBERRY HILL. 
 
 people," he recommenced, with additional 
 energy, " never forget who are your friends. 
 Eest assured that if I am to be your mem- 
 ber, I am determined to do everything for 
 every body." 
 
 At this extremely liberal announcement, 
 the cheering appeared unanimous ; but it 
 was turned to as unanimous a laugh, when 
 a ragged fellow on a neighbouring sign-post 
 asked the candidate to lend him five shillings ; 
 adding, he wouldn't say a word about the 
 rest of the guinea^ till his honour was in 
 Parliament. 
 
 ^' One more word, and I have done," con- 
 tinued the orator ; " I cannot entertain a 
 moment's doubt as to the result of this con- 
 test. Slavery and chains are not to the 
 taste of the free and enlightened voters of 
 this borough." 
 
 The free and enlightened voters expresssed 
 their concurrence in this opinion, in a man- 
 ner that at least proved the soundness of 
 their lungs. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 21 
 
 '* Hasten to the poll !" cried the candidate. 
 '' 1 looks for every man's vote, what has the 
 feelings of a patriot, and knows how to act 
 like one. The eyes of the whole country 
 are upon you — fail not to shew that you are 
 worthy of the high opinion the world has of 
 your public spirit, and ever bear in mind the 
 o^lorious cause for which we are struofo^lins: — 
 the cause for which Russell died on the field, 
 and Hampden perished on the scaiFold." 
 
 Here the reader must be informed that 
 Jolly Jonathan, like many other provincial 
 (jrators, had a few pet phrases, of which he 
 generally availed himself when desirous of 
 producing a great effect. With regard to 
 the blundering reference to the two patriots 
 just mentioned, though often set right, he 
 had uttered the same w^ords a thousand 
 times, and could not be persuaded he was in 
 error. 
 
 The speaker having as he fancied said 
 enough for himself, now proceeded to attack 
 his adversary. Hitherto, although it could 
 
22 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 not be said that he had had it all his own 
 way, the interruptions from the mob had been 
 anything but hostile ; but directly he ven- 
 tured to mention his rival disparagingly, 
 the strength of the Walpole party made 
 itself manifest in a manner neither agree- 
 able, nor altogether unattended with danger. 
 Groans, hisses, and shouts of derision, accom- 
 panied him in every paragraph. The voci- 
 ferous cheering however of his own partizans 
 encouraged him to proceed. 
 
 It soon appeared as though a particular 
 portion of the mob were bent upon apply- 
 ing their own punctuation to their towns- 
 man's eloquence. A comma would come in 
 the sliape of a cabbage-stump — a rotten 
 apple did the duty of a semicolon — a colon 
 found an excellent equivalent in a couple of 
 addled eggs — and ultimately a dead cat ful- 
 filled the service of a full stop, by knocking 
 the orator off his legs, and tumbling him 
 into the arms of his staunch friends, Captain 
 Pincher and Orlando Budge, Esq. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 23 
 
 The other candidate now presented him- 
 self — attended by his noble proposer and 
 wealthy fox-hunting friend — with apparently, 
 in the background, a guard of honour 
 composed of his principal supporters. 
 
 His appearance would have been the 
 prelude to a general row, on the part of the 
 infuriated partizans of Briggs, had not 
 the air of fashion with which he proffered 
 liis bow, as he advanced in front of the 
 hustings, and the very gentlemanlike cut 
 and quality of his gamients, made a power- 
 ful impression in his favour. The sturdy 
 Cornishmen were well aware that he was 
 a son of the unpopular minister, and that 
 his political principles were diametrically 
 opposed to whatever they considered lilx^ral ; 
 but the most ignorant were as well aware 
 he had just returned from '' foreign parts," 
 and they chose to employ some few minutes 
 of personal observation, before they would 
 venture upon an expression of their senti- 
 ments respecting hun. 
 
'2i STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 While the universal curiosity was being 
 gratified, the object of it, with ready tact, 
 took advantaore of the silence to fjain a 
 hearing. Instead of indulging in the cus- 
 tomary common -places of election speeches, 
 the candidate thought proper, and had taken 
 wonderful pains in the matter, to prepare 
 an oration of so extremely classic a charac- 
 ter, as to do credit to his Etonian studies 
 and Cambridge reflections. It was in the 
 hio^hest deo^ree amusino^ to notice the effect 
 produced on his uneducated Cornish audience, 
 by the marvellous display of scholarship) 
 that was presented to them. It cannot be 
 said, that those who had '' come to scoff re- 
 mained to pray," but assuredly it appeared 
 ns if those who had come to pelt, remained 
 to listen. In exchange for the cut-and-dried 
 phrases, ^yiih. which, time out of mind, their 
 ^'otes had been cajoled, their ears were 
 regaled with sentences worthy of the groves 
 of Academe, teeming with careful scholar- 
 ship, and overflowing with classical allusion. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 25 
 
 The stalwart miner, instead of dispos- 
 ing of his ready missile, stood with open 
 mouth and wondering eyes, while the fluent 
 speaker was rhapsodizing on Spartan liber- 
 ty. Scraps of melhfluous Greek found their 
 way to the untutored ear of the boor, who 
 dropped his turnip and scratched his head 
 in the intensity of his mystification. The 
 ragged mechanics tried to look as little puz- 
 zled as possible at every reference to the 
 Areiopagites, to ostracism, and to other mar- 
 vellous features in Athenian politics, which 
 the young candidate had chosen to mention 
 so famiharly; and the honest tradesman, 
 ^^'ho knew about as much of Greek history 
 as of the ^lan-in-the-Moon, listened to the 
 anecdote of Harmodius and Aristogiton, A\dth 
 an impression on his mind that he had never 
 been so astonished in his life. 
 
 But having secured their attention, the 
 sagacious orator launched out into a wider 
 field — a field that seemed to embrace every 
 thing, from the Trojan war to the conquest 
 
 VOL. 1. c 
 
26 STRA^^VEERRY HILL. 
 
 of Jerusalem — a heterogeneous medley of 
 straujxe names and stramrer ideas, that made 
 the wisest of his hearers as much at fault 
 as though he had just dropped into a new 
 planet. Even his opponent, who was just 
 recoverinf]: from the rou^i^h salute that had 
 so summarily disposed of his eloquence, and 
 who thought so highly of liis own wisdom, 
 found himself 'completely bothered by the 
 hard names that kept rushing from the 
 mouth of the speaker, like a swarm of ants 
 from their violated nest. 
 
 Captain Pincher, who, when anything 
 was uttered before him that was beyond his 
 comprehension, was always disposed to re- 
 sent it as a reflection upon his understand- 
 ing, now found so much to quarrel with, 
 that it became an absolute impossibility to 
 know where to begin. His coadjutor looked 
 equally indignant. He felt himself in a fog, 
 and with the prophetic instinct of persons 
 of his class, entertained a misgiving that 
 the speaker was making a fool of him. 
 
STRATVBERRY HILL. 27 
 
 Lord Tremavne smiled — a never-failiDfr 
 resource when his Lordship felt himself at 
 a loss. He wanted to shew that the ver}^ 
 classical oration of the Prime Minister's 
 son was thoroughly appreciated. Sir Harry 
 Pendives frowned; he had waited to hear 
 his young friend explain his views in favour 
 of the country gentlemen, with especial re- 
 ference to brinD:inD^ before Parliament some 
 new law for the preservation of foxes ; but 
 in his ideas the orator had evidently lost 
 the scent, and seemed to be sapng what 
 was as much to the purpose as an anniver- 
 sary sermon at a hunting carouse. 
 
 The novelty of the thing had done won- 
 ders. The mob had been taken by surprise, 
 and, satisfied that there must be something 
 more than ordinary in so very puzzling a 
 discourse, ventured to applaud whenever 
 the speaker paused for breath. This encou- 
 raged others to follow their example, till the 
 more extravagant he became, the more vo- 
 ciferous grew the cheers of his audience ; and 
 
 c 2 
 
28 STEA^VBERRY HILL. 
 
 when he concluded with a peroration made 
 up of such an extraordinary confusion of 
 ideas, as to render the rest of the strange 
 address intelligible in comparison, the plau- 
 dits became so long and so loud, that in the 
 memory of the oldest polling- clerk there 
 had never been heard a speech which had 
 been half so well received. 
 
 The reader, therefore, \^dll not be very 
 greatly surprised to learn, that when the 
 Sheriff called for a show of hands, the sup- 
 porters of the younger candidate outnum- 
 ))ered the other party ten to one ; and when 
 a poll was demanded by the disconcerted 
 Briggs, the shouts of " Walpole for ever!" 
 so aijffravated his diminished followers, that 
 they commenced an attack upon their oppo- 
 nents with all their forces. A fierce con- 
 test was the result. Banners waved and 
 cudgels played — the party shouts presently 
 became the war cries of two desperate armies 
 — the mass of Cornish heads that filled the 
 space before the hustings, exhibited as much 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 29 
 
 commotion as the sea on their o^vn rou2rh 
 coast, in the ^vildest storm that ever visited 
 the Land's End; and screams, groans, and 
 hisses arose from all directions simulta- 
 neously with a shower which apparently 
 had never been equalled in the singularit}' 
 of its elements, save on the occasion of that 
 oft quoted phenomenon, when it rained 
 ''cats, dogs, and pitch-forks." 
 
 But it was the last belligerent effort of 
 the unfortunate "Blues;" their hopes were 
 destroyed and their heads broken. If they 
 were not thrashed to their heart's content, 
 by the triumphant " Yellows," marvellous 
 indeed must have been the extent of castiga- 
 tion that would have satisfied them. 
 
30 STRA^\rBERRY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 CHAIRING THE JVIE^IBER. 
 
 There was a very duU meeting in the 
 club-room at the Red Lion. That capacious 
 chamber which had so long beheld the as- 
 semblies of " The Free and United True 
 Blues of the Borough of CaUington," and 
 had resounded with the eloquence of its per- 
 petual president, the melody of its honorary 
 secretary, and the mirth of its venerated 
 treasurer, was now turned into a committee- 
 room. Its ranges of windows left with 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 31 
 
 scarcely a whole pane — its extensive floor 
 littered with broken glass, brickbats, cab- 
 bage-stumps, and dead cats — a heap of tat- 
 tered banners lying in one corner — frag- 
 ments of placarded boards heaped in an- 
 other — whilst one portion of the room, near 
 the door, was crowded with a very vaga- 
 bond-looking lot of fellows, with tattered 
 garments bespattered with mud, and heads 
 tied up with blood-stained cloths, or covered 
 with plasters, which told quite as plainly as 
 their dismal visages, that the election was 
 far from going on as favourably as their 
 candidate could have desired. 
 
 There was a long table in the centre of 
 the room, bearmg, besides a punch-bowl 
 and glasses, tobacco and pipes, an assort- 
 ment of business-like looking books, writing 
 materials, and a mass of printed papers, in 
 which the words, " Vote for Briggs," might 
 be read at a considerable distance. At 
 one end of the table, in his chair of office, 
 sat the clumsy figure of Jolly Jonathan. 
 
32 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 But who could have recognized hhn with 
 that chap-fallen countenance! Where was 
 the ever-smiling benignity of the perpetual 
 president? Where the ready cut-and-dried 
 eloquence of the practised chairman ? What 
 could have transformed his peony counte- 
 nance into that unwholesome mass of blue 
 and yellow, that, unwashed, unshaven, with 
 disarranged neckcloth and dusty coat, seemed 
 to sit so uncomfortably under his disordered 
 wig? 
 
 His feelings were evidently too intense 
 for language — indeed he made it apparent 
 that they were too intense for any thing but 
 the contents of the punch-bowl before him, 
 which, through the agency of a silver ladle 
 and a capacious glass, disappeared down his 
 throat with as much method as though the 
 arrangement was produced by machinery. 
 
 At the other end of the table sat Captain 
 Pincher, shemng his teeth like an angry 
 bull-dog, and talking as pugnaciously as 
 though he intended to fight the whole to^vn 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 33 
 
 by sections, and cared very little if he began 
 with his very particular friends around him. 
 
 Orlando Budge, Esq., looked as much 
 sympathy as he could contrive to throw 
 into his batter-pudding physiognomy. He 
 was well aware that one public character 
 ought to feel for another ; and, not knowing 
 how soon it might be his own turn to endure 
 a similar disappointment, he exhibited the 
 intensity of his sympathy, by applying, as 
 diligently as his friend, to the source of con- 
 solation he had selected. 
 
 They had been drinking many hours. 
 Mr. Budge felt, that if he sympathised in 
 this way much longer, he should be in a 
 condition to require sympathy for himself. 
 He perceived the four comers of the room 
 running a race, with a speed that was to 
 him dreadfully alarming ; and once or twice 
 he was under the necessity of rubbing his 
 eyes, to ascertain, as clearly as possible, 
 whether there were not two candidates in 
 the room instead of one. 
 
 c3 
 
34 STRAWBERRY IHLL. 
 
 Around the table reclined, in various re- 
 flective attitudes, the members of the com- 
 mittee; some leaning forward, with both 
 elbows on the table — some leaning back, 
 with their heads resting on their hands — a 
 few meditating mth crossed arms and bent 
 brows, and others absorbed, as it were, in 
 a philosophical study of their finger-nails. 
 They were chiefly tradesmen of the town, 
 sufficiently well to do to be able to walk 
 into the Red Lion and call for their glass, 
 and pay, when demanded, their subscrip- 
 tion, as members of " The Free and 
 United True Blues of the Borough of Cal- 
 lington." 
 
 There were the sturdy Hodge Mealman, 
 the miller, and the flashy Dick Sweetwort, 
 the brewer ; there were Old Bricks, the buil- 
 der, and Young Bricks, the tanner; there 
 were Dips, the chandler. Chips, the carpen- 
 ter, and Wollopall, the schoolmaster of the 
 Grammar-school. These were people as well 
 known as the sign over the door of the old- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 35 
 
 fashioned inn where they were in the habit 
 of passing their evenings. 
 
 We have now only to bring under review 
 one more personage. A short ill-made little 
 fellow, in an old wig a mile too big for him, 
 sitting on a chair with his legs crossed un- 
 der the seat, diligently casting up long 
 columns of figures, in what appeared to be 
 the polling-books that had been used by 
 Briggs's committee. He was seen with pen 
 in one hand, and a large glass of hot gin- 
 and-water in the other, mounting up each 
 monstrous column; the point of the pen 
 resting on the figures in succession, as 
 though they formed a numerical ladder, till 
 he had achieved the top, when calhng out 
 the result, as the sum should be placed at 
 the bottom of the page, he took a copious 
 draught of the steaming Geneva, and began 
 to add up the next colmnn. 
 
 Whether it was that the number of figures 
 was too much for his calculating powers, or 
 his vision had become affected by the quan- 
 
36 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 tity of spirit Avith which he had thought 
 proper to refresh himself during his labours, 
 it is certain that his result of the state of the 
 poll, according to his calculation, as much 
 surprised the committee as himself. But 
 the assistance of the schoolmaster having 
 been called, the large majority of the 
 drunken poll-clerk was speedily changed to 
 a most humiliating minority. 
 
 Captain Pincher denounced the clerk in 
 very savage terms, and seemed inclined to 
 disallow the correctness of his arithmetic, 
 when a tremendous uproar in the street 
 drew off the attention of the committee, and 
 in an instant every one rushed to the broken 
 windows to behold what was going on. 
 Martial music filled the air, accompanied 
 by shouts so loud as to bring the convic- 
 tion that the whole population assisted in 
 producing them. Nearer approached the 
 tumult— flags and banners waved proudly 
 over the heads of what seemed an incalcu- 
 lable multitude. What it meant, not one of 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 37 
 
 the Free and United True Blues appeared 
 to be aware. 
 
 The procession came near enough to en- 
 able the puzzled committee men to ascer- 
 tain its nature and its object. The inscrip- 
 tions on the flags, and the continuous 
 shouts, prepared them for the overpowering 
 truth. The next object that met theu* gaze 
 was the last drop to the brimming cup of 
 vexation the ambitious Briofofs had been 
 made to imbibe — They were chairing the 
 successful candidate. Horace AValpole was 
 Member for the Borouo^h of Calhno^ton. It 
 was all over with the True Blues. The 
 hated Yellows had gained the victory. 
 
 The procession stopped under the win- 
 dows of the Red Lion — we should have said 
 the frames: " Walpole for ever!" cried a 
 smart young fellow in the Walpole livery, 
 in a state of frantic excitement, waving his 
 cocked hat over his head. Three loud cheers 
 proclaimed the triumph of the Walpohtes 
 over their opponents. 
 
38 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 This was too much for poor Briggs, and 
 equally too much for his friends. The per- 
 petual president sank back in the arms of 
 the faithful treasurer, who was equally 
 overpowered either by his functions or his 
 feelings; and it was not till the next sun 
 shone, and their heads began to recover 
 from the extent of their potations, that they 
 found themselves sufficiently masters of their 
 own actions to believe they should ever be 
 able to hold up their heads again in their 
 native town. 
 
 We will not attempt to describe the 
 extravagant rejoicings with which the 
 frantic Walpolites celebrated their vic- 
 tory. The worthy electors of Callington 
 appeared as irrational as free and enlight- 
 ened electors ought to be who had been 
 made so very drunk, and had been bribed 
 so very handsomely. At the period we are 
 seeking to illustrate, the value of votes was 
 much better understood than it appears to 
 be at present, and the appreciation of 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 39 
 
 voters, both by themselves and their candi- 
 dates, was consequently at an amazmg quo- 
 tation. 
 
 It was a subject of much rejoicing in tliis 
 Cornish constituency, that their candidate 
 had the advantage of Government influence 
 and Treasury resources. It was obvious 
 that the son of such a minister as Sir Eobert 
 Walpole, ought to be returned by them. 
 His committee did not fall short of their ex- 
 pectations: and the final state of the poll 
 proved how well they had done the business 
 of the state, in securing the return of a sup- 
 porter of the Government, and how readily 
 the electors had responded to the unanswer- 
 able appeal that had been made to them, 
 by electing him as their representative. 
 
 But it may be asked, how did their mem- 
 ber receive honours so new to him? When 
 enjoying the noisy hospitality of the mag- 
 nates of the borough — when once more 
 lauded to the skies by the somewhat over- 
 zealous but not too sensible Lord Tremayne, 
 
40 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 of Tremayne Castle, and " tallyho'd ! " by 
 the blunt and boisterous Sir Harry Pen- 
 dives, of Pendives Court — did not his pale 
 cheek j^low with animation, and his heart 
 throb with pleasure? 
 
 A tinore of colour had driven warmth to 
 his pallid complexion — the pulses of his 
 heart were unusually disturbed; but the 
 cause of neither of these effects existed in 
 his satisfaction at his present position. 
 
 He felt himself to be the sport of two op- 
 posing influences. To allow the exercise 
 of one, was to menace the existence of the 
 other. His new honours might elevate him 
 in the opinion of one whose regard, though 
 he had found it so difficult to attain, he 
 coveted above all human gifts; he knew 
 they would be regarded as badges of dis- 
 grace by another, whose esteem had once 
 been — apparently still was — the most prized 
 of earthly distinctions. His heart beat tu- 
 multuously as he thought of the career now 
 opening to his ambition ; but he blushed as 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 41 
 
 the humiliating suggestion was presented to 
 his mind, whether it might not be said, in 
 a different quarter, that he had made him- 
 self a tool to be put to any discreditable use 
 that might be found for it. 
 
42 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE WALPOLE FAJ^IILY. 
 
 Horace Walpole was a Member of Par- 
 liament. How ardently lie had longed for 
 this distinction, it is in vain to attempt to 
 describe. His position was far from being 
 a covetable one, though it was one, the dis- 
 advantages of which others experienced as 
 well as himself. He was a younger son, 
 and had to endure an unusual amount of a 
 younger son's humiliations. 
 
 At an early age he had been made to feel 
 
STRA^YBERRY HILL. 43 
 
 his want of consequence at the domestic 
 hearth. His father, absorbed in the war 
 of politics, had little time to devote to cul- 
 tivating the affections of his children. He 
 was a statesman — he forgot he was also a 
 parent. Sir Robert Walpole knew that his 
 place was at the head of the councils of his 
 sovereign, and that he had enough to do to 
 maintain it. He could not afford a thou^jht 
 for home. He was immersed in the busi- 
 ness of the country. Besides the rivalry of 
 foreign states, which was always sufficiently 
 mienacing, he had to guard against foes 
 more dangerous, that he knew but too well 
 existed in his own land. 
 
 The second sovereign of the House of 
 Hanover sat upon the British throne. The 
 nation, to be sure, were in a better humour 
 mth liis rule than they had been with that 
 of his father. George the Second had shewn 
 some sympathy with England, though much 
 more Hanoverian in his feehngs than was 
 agreeable to the mass of his British sub- 
 
44 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 jects; but they were well aware that the 
 expatriated Stuarts were still in existence, 
 and there was a sufficient number of them 
 dissatisfied with the present state of things, 
 or prejudiced in favour of the royal exiles, 
 to irive a minister considerable uneasiness, 
 should any event occur to put it in the 
 power of either of such claimants to con- 
 test their forfeited throne with its present 
 possessor. 
 
 Sir Robert knew very well that the most 
 active intrigues were in force, in more than 
 one of the Continental courts, to plunge 
 the British islands into a rebellion ; and was 
 quite as well aware that the ruse of de- 
 nouncing the son of James II. as "a Pre- 
 tender," did very little service to the Hano- 
 verian cause. His measures were of a much 
 more active nature. He was indefatigable 
 in counteracting the influence of the Ja- 
 cobites in foreign courts, and in prevent- 
 ino^ their becominor formidable to him in 
 England. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 45 
 
 But this was far from being all his task- 
 work. He found that a powerful party ex- 
 isted in what he might consider his own 
 camp, the object of which was to deprive 
 him of his covetable position, as the respon- 
 sible ruler of the country. Party feuds 
 ran high in both houses of Parliament, and 
 the able statesman was hated and feared by 
 envious friends as much as by the most 
 hostile of his poHtical enemies. To guard 
 himself against the machinations of both 
 open and concealed foes, was another great 
 item in his multitudinous labours. 
 
 With so much upon his hands, notwith- 
 standing the absolute claims of flesh and 
 blood, it cannot be considered extraordi- 
 ]iary, that the harassed minister should 
 appear a careless husband and a neglectful 
 father ; yet it could not be said that he was 
 either unkind or unfeelino:. 
 
 We inchne to the opinion that a minister 
 should have no affections — that sentiment 
 cannot assimilate with diplomacy — that do- 
 
46 STRAWBERRY HELL. 
 
 mestic happiness is incompatible with states- 
 manship. Indeed we think that a youth 
 vowed to the State should be like one in 
 Catholic countries vowed to the Church — 
 he should be devoted to a life of celibacy. 
 If it come to pass that a situation should be 
 advertised as vacant for the First Lord of 
 the Treasury, it should invariably be stated, 
 as it often is in much humbler vocations, 
 that the candidate should be " without en- 
 cumbrances." 
 
 How is it possible for one who hath the 
 destinies of a nation in his hands, to give 
 his attention to the bringing up of little 
 boys and girls? How can he turn from 
 the concoction of a royal speech to the 
 consideration of a schoolboy's wants and 
 wishes — leave a declaration of war, to no- 
 tice a young lady's improvement in fancy 
 work ; or take off his attention from grant- 
 ing subsidies to foreign states, to pay the 
 demands of lesson-^ivinor fashionable musi- 
 cians and dancing-masters? 
 
STRA^nBERRY UILL. 47 
 
 But though Horace Walpole had seen 
 little of his father, he had heard a great 
 deal of him; and the reports that reached 
 hira of his greatness produced early in his 
 mind a powerful impression, which, com- 
 bined with the very unusual enjoyment of 
 being in his presence, excited a wonderful 
 deofree of reverence and devotion. 
 
 Possibly maternal aiFection might have 
 modified his peculiar idiosyncracy ; but he 
 had lost his mother some years since, and 
 shortly afterwards gained another by his 
 father's second marriage with a lady who 
 had previously been his mistress. This new 
 connection, as might be supposed, did not 
 better his condition. 
 
 Thus, as it were on the threshold of 
 manhood, our hero was forced to concentrate 
 his attention on his remaining parent; and 
 it was singular to observe the impressions 
 that had been produced in his boyhood, in- 
 fluencing his mind ^vith such intensity as 
 completely to direct his career. 
 
48 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 He became more sensible of the ambitious 
 position of his father as the confidential ad- 
 viser of his Sovereign, the chief director of 
 the Government, as well as the dispenser of 
 a vast share of its patronage ; and a peculiar 
 feeling of devotion to him took possession 
 of his nature, which not all the slights he 
 was made to feel — as much through his 
 comparative unimportant position in the 
 family as a younger son, as from the do- 
 mestic deficiencies of the engrossed minister 
 — could diminish in the slightest degree: 
 
 Sir Robert Walpole now led a bachelor 
 lift* — he was growing old, but he appeared 
 determined to enjoy to the utmost what was 
 left of his existence, and the minister's ex- 
 treme conviviality astonished both friends 
 and enemies. His son Horace continually 
 heard the most extraordinary accounts of 
 his parent's endearing manners and jovial 
 disposition ; and it seemed hard to him that 
 he, his child, should have no share in a heart 
 that appeared to be thrown open to all the 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 49 
 
 world. The same post that brought him in- 
 telligence of the boundless hospitality of his 
 paternal home, brought him a formal inti- 
 mation that he was to prepare for finishing 
 his education with the Grand Tour. 
 
 As he paced his quiet chambers at Cam- 
 bridire, where this resolution — written in 
 the frigid style of a communication from a 
 superior to a humble subordinate — had found 
 him, young AValpole entered into one of 
 those romantic determinations which not 
 unfrequently seize upon the minds of very 
 young men, possessed of more than ordi- 
 nary sensibility. With his heart yearning 
 towards his illustrious parent, he instantly 
 took measures to transport himself out of 
 the country whose destinies at that moment 
 seemed so completely in that parent's hands ; 
 and at once gave up every hope of seeing for 
 an indefinite time, the approving smile that 
 appeared to him to be the most covetable of 
 human enjoyments. 
 
 It is not our purpose to follow the young 
 
 VOL. L D 
 
50 STRAWBEERY HILL. 
 
 traveller along the route that had previously 
 been chalked out for him, though a tour 
 through France and Italy a hundred years 
 ago was not quite the common-place journey 
 it has now become. Suffice it to say, that 
 he never for a moment forgot the feelings 
 that bound him to his country and to his 
 liome — that his father's honour and great- 
 ness were ever the first objects of his 
 thoughts ; and that he continually sought to 
 obtain information that might be of service 
 to him, which he contrived to forward to 
 England, Avithout affording the Minister any 
 clue to the source whence it came. 
 
 All this time he affected a wonderful cheer- 
 fulness — wrote numberless letters abounding 
 with pleasantry, and apparently had no 
 thought in the world but to amuse himself 
 and to improve his taste. He cultivated 
 the friendship of two or three of his school- 
 fellows with such assiduity, as ought to have 
 satisfied any one that they afforded all the 
 social pleasure his heart required. 
 
STRATVTBERRY HILL. 51 
 
 In due time Horace Walpole returned to 
 England. He could not avoid anticipating, 
 during the last month of his travels, the 
 gratification he should experience when per- 
 mitted to enjoy his father's society. Though 
 absent from England, he had, through his 
 correspondence, obtained tolerably correct 
 information of the state of parties at home ; 
 besides which, his own observations of many 
 thino:s that came "svithin his coornizance re- 
 lating to the prospects of the Pretender, 
 whose family were residents in Italy, made 
 him aware, to a considerable extent, of what 
 was plotting by parties abroad. This know- 
 ledge gave him a more lively interest in Sir 
 Robert Walpole and his proceedings. He 
 seemed to share in his responsibilities, and 
 feel his troubles. He experienced all the 
 enthusiasm of a thorough partizan, joined to 
 the devotion of the most affectionate of 
 sons. 
 
 He had scarcely found himself domiciled 
 in the tOA\Ti mansion of the Minister, who 
 
 D 2 
 
 U. OF ILL Lib. 
 
52 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 was then keeping open house with his usual 
 prodigality at his magnificent country man- 
 sion, Houghton, in Suffolk, when he had 
 the mortification of receiving from his father 
 a formal command to start for Cornwall im- 
 mediately, as preparations were making to 
 ensure him a seat in Parliament for the 
 borough of Callington. 
 
 At first this was bitter enough ; but after 
 some time passed in allowing the current of 
 excited sensibility to flow on unchecked, the 
 cold tenor of the message was forgotten in 
 the brilliant opening it gave for realizing 
 those dreams of poHtical ambition he had 
 been so fond of encouraging under the soft 
 skies of Italy ; but not till after a dream a 
 thousand times more seductive, to the glow- 
 ing illusions of which he had abandoned 
 every sense, had been most rudely disturbed. 
 The result of the journey we have already 
 related. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 53 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 A YOUNGER SON. 
 
 • " ^YELL, it was a prodigious good joke, I 
 must allow/' said a rakish looking young 
 gentleman, addressing a circle of men about 
 his own age, evidently in a state of the 
 highest good humour, who appeared to be 
 taking their breakfast in a large room on the 
 ground floor of Sir Robert Walpole's oflicial 
 residence in Downing Street. 
 
 They were friends of Horace AValpole ; 
 nearly all could claim the reputation of 
 " Wits," and they had met to congratulate 
 
54 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 him on his success : the wonderful classical 
 oration that had produced such surprising 
 effects in his favour had just been the cause 
 of a vast expenditure of very hearty mirth. 
 
 The room in which they were sitting was 
 one of considerable size, well furnished with 
 bulky chairs boasting morocco seats; a 
 dining-table of the largest dimensions; a 
 massive side-board ; and a series of fine full- 
 length portraits of the Walpole family. The 
 table and side -board were spread with eat- 
 ables of different kinds, from substantial 
 joints of cold meat that appeared sufficient 
 to satisfy the appetites of a regiment, to cer- 
 tain little delicacies fresh from the hand of 
 the cook, that could have been intended only 
 for those whose eating was on a much more 
 limited scale. Amongst these good things, 
 was a liberal display of coffee, chocolate, and 
 tea, in handsome silver vessels, with a pro- 
 portionate array of the usual furniture of the 
 breakfast table. 
 
 They seemed a very happy party : much 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 55 
 
 happier than such antagonistic characters 
 as "Wits" are reputed to be. They ate 
 heartily, drank heartily, and laughed heartily ; 
 indulging in the last proceeding quite as 
 much as in either of the other two. It 
 was evident that they were under no re- 
 straint ; for although an old servant in the 
 Walpole livery waited upon them, the rosy 
 gills, well-dressed wig, and ample corpora- 
 tion of Sir Robertas town butler were too 
 familiar to them all to allow their pos- 
 sessor to act as a check upon their vivacity. 
 Indeed, Oswald was one of those privileged 
 domestics who, from long service, or respect 
 for their qualities, have been regarded as 
 part of the family ^Yith whom they are 
 found ; and the butler of the Prime Minister 
 was, in fact, a person of no small conse- 
 quence in that house. He had saved suf- 
 ficient money — for accumulating which, by 
 the way, he had possessed singular advan- 
 tao^es — to make his remaininof in service a 
 matter of perfect indifference to him ; yet he 
 
56 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 would as soon have thought of investing his 
 savings, bribes, and the other " perquisites " 
 of his place, in South Sea Stock, as of quit- 
 ting the family. 
 
 In his eyes, Sir Robert Walpole Avas a 
 greater man than King or Keyser — and, ac- 
 cording to his ideas, his master's prodigious 
 greatness reflected no slight portion of con- 
 sequence upon himself. An ever-present 
 feeling of this betrayed him into the exhi- 
 bition of numberless singularities, that caused 
 a good deal of amusement, without, however, 
 diminishing the regard in which he was so 
 generally held. 
 
 Oswald felt an unbounded reverence for 
 his master, and he experienced an attachment 
 of a warmer character to his younger son. 
 Pie had noticed the neglect from which 
 the boy had suifered in early life : noticing 
 also his superior intelligence and many en- 
 dearing qualities, he had been in the habit 
 of sheA\dng him all the good offices in his 
 power ; and his feehngs in his favour had be- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 57 
 
 come so powerful, now the neglected boy had 
 become a man, that there was nothing prac- 
 ticable which the old man would not willingly 
 have done to please him. 
 
 Probably, of all that merry breakfast party, 
 Oswald was the merriest: vet he was the 
 most attentive of attendants, recommending 
 every delicacy on the well-covered table with 
 an eloquence of the most persuasive kind; 
 but the familiarity was so respectful, it could 
 not have alarmed the prejudices of the most 
 rigid respecter of the claims of birth. 
 
 There was one person in the room who 
 was conspicuous, from the singular contrast 
 presented to the laughing faces around, in a 
 physiognomy that looked as if the possessor 
 were either too sleepy to be conscious of what 
 was then going forward, or too simple to 
 appreciate the jests of his companions. In- 
 deed, there was a demureness in his coun- 
 tenance that might readily have created the 
 impression that he was out of place among 
 his vivacious associates ; whilst, on the con- 
 
 D 3 
 
58 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 trary, his listless and drowsy manner gave 
 him the appearance of having prolonged the 
 overnight's gaieties till he had deprived him- 
 self of his natural rest. 
 
 The neatness of his dress, however, was at 
 variance Avith the latter supposition. His 
 complexion was colourless ; but the smooth 
 cheek and well- mown chin had evidently but 
 recently received the advantage of a careful 
 toilet. Xot a curl in his wig was out of 
 order ; his lace cravat and ruffles were fresh 
 from the laundress ; there was not a stain upon 
 the broad gold lace that faced his waistcoat 
 which was buttoned up to the throat ; his 
 single-breasted Quaker-like coat was "wdthout 
 a rumple, and his velvet breeches without a 
 crease. In short, in his person he was far 
 from betraying any of the ordinary signs of 
 a young rake after a sleepless debauch. 
 
 It seemed, then, that he must be set down 
 as one of those hio:h-bred orentlemen — half 
 simpleton, half saint — who are occasionally 
 to be met with in gay circles, playing the 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 59 
 
 necessary part of hutt to their ill-cliosen 
 associates. And this inference was much 
 strengthened by a peculiar turning up of the 
 whites of his eyes whenever he was roused 
 out of his torpor to make a reply to a perti- 
 nacious questioner. 
 
 Yet it very soon became clear that if he 
 was not a drowsy profligate, he most assur- 
 edly was not an unconscious hutt : for those 
 lips never opened except to utter some quaint 
 remark, or relate some piquant anecdote, 
 to the wit of which the listless manner and 
 demure aspect of the speaker apparently 
 gave irresistible poignancy ; for the voice was 
 rarely heard without eliciting a general laugh 
 — a laugh, however, that never aiFected Mm 
 — his torpor was immovable^ his demure- 
 ness stereotyped : as the report followed the 
 flash of his wit, he turned up his eyes, and 
 looked as unconscious of the jest, as though 
 his features were as hard as those of '' his 
 irrandsire cut in alabaster." 
 
 This " sleeping partner," as he might 
 
GO STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 have been called, of the firm of Wits col- 
 lected in that apartment, was no other than 
 George Sehvyn, whose eccentricities of man- 
 ner and quaintness of phrase were, even in 
 these early days of his fame, making him one 
 of the most fashionable men of his day. 
 
 " Yes, it was a jest that reflects as much 
 credit upon those who used it as upon those 
 who received it," continued the speaker; " It 
 argues a very enlightened constituency to 
 appreciate so thoroughly so superior a piece 
 of scholarship from a candidate for their 
 suffrages." 
 
 '' Hanbury Williams, that is a monstrous 
 loo^ical conclusion " observed another of the 
 party. He was a youth of delicate com- 
 plexion, and highly intellectual physiognomy; 
 and had addressed a gentleman somewhat 
 his senior in years, at the further end of the 
 table, who chanced to be demolishing a 
 pigeon pie, and smothering a laugh at the 
 same time. 
 
 '' For the address to the amazingly en- 
 
STKAWBERRY HILL. Gl 
 
 lightened electors of the borough of Calling- 
 ton, it does not become me to say more of 
 its supereminent merit than I possibly can 
 help, seeing that I assisted in its composi- 
 tion," answered Sir Charles. 
 
 " Yes ; Williams and Gray helped me with 
 the poetical touches," said Horace Walpole, 
 in the same humour, as he kept devouring 
 a devilled chicken, -w^th a relish that o:reatlv 
 delighted the attentive butler. " The fact 
 is, my genius is a bird of such very noble 
 feather, it will soar only in the highest 
 regions of the sublime." 
 
 '' Oh dear!" exclaimed George Selwyn, 
 in his customary drowsy manner, " our 
 friend's genius, I fear, is like a boy's kite — 
 the more elevated it is, the less you see of 
 it." 
 
 ^' It was all monstrous sublime and poeti- 
 cal too, I haven't a doubt," resumed another 
 of the young men, after the laugh that fol- 
 lowed the utterance of Selwyn's jest had 
 subsided; "but always excepting the taste 
 
62 SXrvAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 of those Boeotian Callingtonians in classical 
 eloquence, which, I must say, surprised me 
 extremely." 
 
 '' That admission ought to be prodi- 
 giously in their favour, '^ observed Sir 
 Charles, " for Montagu is a very astonish- 
 ing fellow in his way, and therefore ought to 
 be the less sensible of what is extraordinary 
 in others. I remember I surprised him once 
 — but then, as I have reason to believe, it 
 was very late after dinner, when our eyes 
 are not so easily open to starts and convul- 
 sions, as at a more sober hour of the day. 
 The fact is, I had been drinking freely, at 
 some fellow's of our acquaintance, and was 
 quitting to return to my o\vn domicile ; my 
 foot slipped on the stairs, and I tumbled 
 from top to bottom. When I picked myself 
 up, Montagu kindly expressed his surprise 
 I had not broken my neck." 
 
 " Excepting their classical taste, let me 
 say again," said Montagu, availing himself 
 of a break in the storm of mirth that had 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 63 
 
 just passed over, "I think a mob of more 
 illiterate, stupid, ignorant animals than 
 your Cornwall constituents, I never saw in 
 the whole course of my existence/' 
 
 " By Jove, Horace, I wouldn't stand 
 that!" exclaimed a young and very hand- 
 some military officer, sending his cup to be 
 replenished; "remember, any reflection on 
 the enlio'htened electors of Callinoton must 
 be personal to their very enlightened repre- 
 sentative." 
 
 " 1 should be the horriblest ungrateful 
 wretch alive, Conway," replied Horace, in 
 the same humour, " could I sit still and 
 hear anything to the prejudice of a body of 
 men who have honoured me with their con- 
 fidence, and whom in return I cannot help 
 regarding as possessing a degree of judg- 
 ment and sagacity very much in advance 
 of their cotemporaries." 
 
 The exclamations, the affected coughing, 
 and the mockin;]^ lauii'h that followed the 
 last speech, prevented the breakfast pro- 
 
64 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ceeding for some minutes; but the friends 
 were much too inclined to enjoy themselves 
 to remit their exertions — either masticatory, 
 bibulous, or jocose — for any other than 
 the shortest possible period ; and in a few 
 seconds a running fire of jests again was 
 heard, accompanying the rattle of knives 
 and forks and the clatter of tea-cups — almost 
 as musical a noise as a modern piano forte 
 concerto — and so it continued till that luxu- 
 rious meal was terminated. 
 
 " Oswald, my good fellow," said Horace 
 Walpole, addressing his father's confidential 
 servant as he was passing him, "have any 
 letters arrived from Norfolk, or has any 
 one called since I have been in town?" 
 
 " Your letters are in the Library, Mr. 
 Horace," replied Oswald, looking with an 
 air which he had learned to put on, from 
 having passed so much of his life in the 
 service of so eminent a diplomatist as Sir 
 Robert Walpole. 
 
 The young Member was too familiar with 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 65 
 
 Ills old friend, to allow such a look to escape 
 him. He saw there was something in re- 
 serve of more than ordinary importance; 
 and availing himself of the first opportunity 
 of lea\dng his friends, he was soon in that 
 well-kno^^i chamber, so redolent of the 
 odours of calf-skin and morocco. There was 
 a fine collection of books ranged on their 
 shelves with a mihtary regularity — the tall 
 folios and bulky quartos appearing like a 
 squadron of hea^y cavalry — the large paper 
 octavos standm<r Hke a column of grpena- 
 diers — and the duodecimos and other little 
 books, which appeared from the gaps on 
 the shelves to have been in most frequent 
 requisition, were evidently doing duty as 
 light infantry in skirmishing order. 
 
 On the top of the book-cases, at reg-ular 
 distances, were busts of eminent scholars; 
 and a fine portrait of George II. in his 
 robes, by KneUer, was placed over the old- 
 fashioned mantel-piece. A large library- 
 table stood in the centre of the room, fur- 
 
66 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 nislied with movable desks all round and 
 drawers beneath, and bearing a massive 
 silver ink-stand, a liberal supply of writing 
 materials, a despatch-box, a few recently 
 published books and pamphlets — presenta- 
 tion copies from subservient authors and 
 politicians of his o^vn party — reviews, ma- 
 gazines, newspapers, and piles of documents 
 of every possible form, size, and description, 
 from a lady's billet to a county petition. 
 
 Horace drew one of the heavy chairs to 
 the place where he noticed several letters; 
 and immediately selecting one bearing the 
 well-known handwriting of his father, "svith 
 a throbbing; heart he threw himself into 
 the seat, and impatiently tore the large 
 armorial seal with which it had been se- 
 cured. 
 
 If he expected it was to contain the 
 summons to Houghton, for which he had 
 so ardently longed, his surprise must only 
 have been exceeded by his disappointment 
 when he read the folio wino; lines : — 
 
STKAWBERRY HILL. 67 
 
 " Houghton Hall. 
 
 " Dear Horace — You will find that an 
 income sufficient for your wants has been 
 secured to you, as you mil henceforth receive 
 £2000 per annum from the Exchequer, wdth 
 £1000 as Comptroller of the Pipe; and as I 
 think it is quite time you should have a house 
 to yourself, I have directed my agent to en- 
 gage a very suitable one which was in the 
 market. As all arrangements have been 
 completed, I recommend you to lose no 
 time in taking possession of your new home, 
 and remain, 
 
 " Your aiFectionate Father, 
 
 " Egbert Walpole." 
 
 "To Horace Waipole, Esq., M.P." 
 
 The perusal of this curt specimen of fa- 
 therly affection was a severe shock to the 
 sensitive feelings of the younger son. If he 
 had been a natural child, and was to be got 
 rid of in some respectable way, that should 
 prevent the necessity of any farther refe- 
 rence to a parent who was ashamed of him, 
 
68 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 this sort of dealing was just what might 
 be expected from a person in Sir Piobert 
 Walpole's position; but to the son who 
 had legitimate claims upon his love, whose 
 heart was overfloT\'ing ^nth filial affec- 
 tion, the present proceeding was very hu- 
 miliating. 
 
 The young ]\Iember flung himself back 
 in his chair in an agony of shame and sor- 
 row. Surely, he thought, the heart of the 
 great Statesman must have parted with all 
 proper feelings for his kind, if he can dispose 
 of his offspring in this unceremonious man- 
 ner ; not a syllable of approval, or even of 
 notice, of the obedience and the tact he had 
 shewn in obtaining the Cornish borough ! 
 not a word of affectionate inquiry, though 
 they had not met for so long a time ; not a 
 sentence of parental advice, though he was 
 to take upon himself so many new resj^onsi- 
 bihties ! He was turned out of the house, 
 that was clear. He was sent about his busi- 
 ness. He was provided for and got rid of. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 69 
 
 It was plain he was looked upon as a mere 
 machine, that was to be put in its place and 
 made to act, and required no further care. 
 
 He began to foncy he was thought to be 
 in the way of his elder brothers while he 
 remained under the paternal roof, and felt 
 a pang of jealousy as he reflected on the ad- 
 vantages they had been allowed in the con- 
 stant communication they had enjoyed with. 
 one or other of their parents, whilst he had 
 been banished as one unworthy of such asso- 
 ciation. He was well aware that in capacity 
 he was far superior to either, and this made 
 him feel more acutely the ill-judged par- 
 tiality with which they had been treated. 
 
 "Why, Horace, my boy," exclaimed the 
 friendly voice of his cousin Conway, slapping 
 him familiarly on the shoulder, " What can 
 have given you such a deuced fit of the 
 blues ? I'll be hanged if your phiz isn't 
 quite cerulean." 
 
 " Read fhat^ Harry," said the other, thrust- 
 ing the letter into his hand. The young 
 
70 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 officer very methodically opened and read 
 the epistle. " Allow me to congratulate 
 you," he replied, as his eye ran do"\vn the 
 contents; ''three thousand a-year, and a 
 house of your own. What a lucky dog you 
 are! If such a windfall had happened to 
 Harry Conway, now, instead of to Horace 
 AValpole — ' odds counterscarps and demi- 
 bastions ! ' as a fellow says in our regi- 
 ment." 
 
 " Oh, Harry, it has made me quite mise- 
 rable." 
 
 " What, your father's generosity ! Upon 
 my soul, you puzzle me. But if three thou- 
 sand a year makes you miserable, what 
 would six have done? Come, cheer up, and 
 thank your stars it's no worse. To be sure, 
 the old gentleman has taken a deal of trouble 
 to show the flinty heart so freely attributed 
 to fathers. His want of regard for you is 
 quite shocking to contemplate." 
 
 '' You make a jest of it ! You don't — 
 3'ou can't understand my feelings.'* 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 71 
 
 " Of course not. How can you expect a 
 poor captain of foot, with more gold on his 
 shoulders than in his pocket, to understand 
 the feehngs of a gentleman who is desperately 
 wretched because a kind father has made 
 him comfortable for life?" 
 
 " Kind^ Harry ! Kind father ! I don't 
 think Sir Robert has the most remote con- 
 ception of what kindness towards a son 
 means." 
 
 "Why, how you talk! Of course it 
 means the gift of two or three pretty sine- 
 cures — such as constitute your three thou- 
 sand a-year. I would the Fates had provided 
 me with so aiFectionate a parent. I would 
 take his kindness in a very different mood 
 from that in which it is but too clear you 
 now receive it." 
 
 " But, Harry, was there ever so unfeeling 
 a letter written?" 
 
 " Unfeeling ! A letter that provides you 
 with a handsome establishment and a mon- 
 strous pretty fortune, unfeeling! Come, 
 
72 STHA\AT^ERRY HILL. 
 
 Horace, my boy, your success iii Cornwall 
 has turned your head. You don't see things 
 now as you ought to do; there's not a 
 younger brother of a noble family in England, 
 who wouldn't be ready to jump out of his 
 honourable sldn at the fair prospect now 
 opening before you !" 
 
 " Younger brother /" exclaimed Horace 
 Walpole, bitterly, "that is the curse ^^dth 
 which I am sent adrift. It seems, like the 
 mark of Cain, to brand me with an e\dlname 
 wherever I go." 
 
 " Then don't go," said his friend, who 
 knew that a jest would have more effect 
 upon his melancholy cousin than any argu- 
 ments. '' Stay in your new house — spend 
 your three thousand a-year like a gentleman 
 — seek to make a name in the conflict of 
 parties — observe well what is going on 
 around you — await your opportunity — and 
 then, younger son or no younger son, if you 
 don't get a tolerable good place in the ladder 
 of life, I shall be prodigiously mistaken." 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 73 
 
 " Look at those fellows we have left in 
 the other room. There is West, for instance. 
 He is an only son — the only son, too, of a 
 Lord Chancellor. Yet he has not half the 
 chance you have of getting on in the world. 
 Kext, there is Gray, who bids fair to be a 
 niighty pretty poet; but rhymes are mon- 
 strous insecure stepping-stones up the accli- 
 vities of ambition. Then we come to 
 Asheton, ]\Iontagu, and Hanbury Williams — 
 choice spirits, out of doubt. They were not 
 bom to hide their light under a bushel — 
 but, my dear coz, whatever merit they pos- 
 sess, your superlative one of having a First 
 Lord of the Treasury for your progenitor, 
 is certainly not amongst them. 
 
 " Lastly, there is George Sehv}m — a 
 drowsy phoenix, slumbering on the ashes of 
 his own jokes; an incomparable fellow for 
 smart sayings. He knows how to put in a 
 jest as a skilful bowler puts in a cricket ball. 
 In short, he is a great talker. But then, you 
 know the proverb so often quoted by us in 
 
 VOL. I. E 
 
74 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 old times, in reference to the doings of such 
 great personages. You have no fear of being 
 bowled out by him. 
 
 " The long and the short of it is, Horace, 
 that you are too proud or too lazy to work, 
 and yet ashamed to beg ; you, I doubt not, 
 would prefer lying under the tree, waiting 
 for the fruit to drop into your mouth, to 
 receiving any portion from the hands of 
 another, or taking the trouble to chmb, and 
 gather the fruit for yourself." 
 
 ''You are ^Tong, Harry, be assured!" 
 repHed his kinsman seriously. " I am as 
 far from being indolent as from wanting 
 ambition. Indeed, I will confess to you that 
 more than one of those deep influences 
 which impel adventurous spirits on the road 
 to "greatness, ur2:es me in the strono^est man- 
 ner to endeavour to achieve distinction. It 
 is no common career that would satisfy me. 
 I set my heart on the possession of rank, 
 wealth, great poUtical influence, high literary 
 fame, and the most brilliant reputation in 
 society." 
 
STKAWBERRY HILL. 75 
 
 Captain Conway perpetrated a prolonged 
 whistle on the his^hest note in the whistlinir 
 gamut. 
 
 " Modest ideas in a younger son, cer- 
 tainly!" he observed, laughingly; " by Jove, 
 though," he added in a more serious manner, 
 " with so capital a father as yours, such 
 things are not impossible. I wish I had 
 your chance of promotion ; I promise you I 
 should not be quarrelling as you now are 
 with the first instalment of Dame Fortune's 
 favours. Younger son, indeed! So well 
 do I think of your prospects, I wouldn't 
 mind standing in your shoes. I don't think 
 I should make a bad Secretary of State. 
 In your place I couldn't be satisfied ^yiih. a 
 less important ofiice." 
 
 Captain Conway was a young man who 
 possessed in an eminent degree the pecu- 
 liarity of always looking on the bright side 
 of things. Let the worst case be presented 
 to him in its worst light, and he never failed 
 to discover something in it vastly consola- 
 
 E 2 
 
76 STRAT\T3ERRY HILL. 
 
 tory. In his eyes, the greatest misfortunes 
 were sure to bring some benefit with them. 
 The most intolerable disappointment would 
 not come unattended ^nth some striking 
 advantage. 
 
 Some " friend of humanity" once pointed 
 out the deplorable condition of juvenile 
 chimney-sweeps; he replied cheerfully, "Ah! 
 I)Ul then only think what a capital denti- 
 frice they have always ready for their use, 
 and no expense to them!" 
 
 On another occasion, a very melancholy 
 case of distress was represented to him of a 
 poor woman Avho had lost her husband and 
 three children in one week, by t}'phus fe- 
 ver. There surely could be nothing conso- 
 latory in so sad an affliction, his friends 
 thought : but Captain Conway at once saw 
 the case had a bright side. He encourag- 
 ingly remarked, that, under the circum- 
 stances, one suit of mourning would be suf- 
 ficient to shew the grief of the poor woman 
 for all the family ; but had they died at in- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 77 
 
 tervals widely apart, she would have been 
 obliged to put on fresh mourning for each, 
 which must have been dreadfully inconve- 
 nient to a woman of her limited means. 
 
 Horace Walpole listened to his gay cou- 
 sin's representation of the bright side of his 
 affairs, till his o^vn gloomy ^iew of them 
 cleared up considerably. He could not, 
 however, avoid feehng most acutely the 
 want of sympathy for him that there seemed 
 to exist in liis father's heart. 
 
 ^Tiilst smarting under the miiuence of 
 disappointment, his mind kept recurring 
 to a passage in his past life, that appeared 
 to be most vividly remembered, because he 
 had come to the resolution of bur}dng every 
 transaction connected mth it in oblivion. 
 His heart beat more rapidly — there was a 
 glow on his cheek and a fire in his eye to 
 which both had long been a stranger. But 
 it was a momentary flashing forth of a spi- 
 rit that he considered ought to be dead and 
 buried, or at least ought to assume a dif- 
 
78 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ferent shape, and exhibit opposite tenden- 
 cies. 
 
 A little self-examination would have 
 shewn him the inconsistency of his feehngs. 
 He had vowed himself a neophyte in the 
 service of diplomacy — he had sworn to wor- 
 ship only at the altar of politics. But his 
 was indisputably a hard lot. What service 
 had he previously foresworn ? — At what 
 altar had he so long been used to worship? 
 Filial love was with him a deep and holy 
 influence, that had become, as it were, his 
 very life — but he could have confessed 
 that the heart is capable of as holy an in- 
 fluence that in its object was dearer than 
 life itself. 
 
 These influences had been in opposition 
 to each other: it was only by the entire 
 sacrifice of his happiness that he had al- 
 lowed the former to triumph. The disap- 
 pointment he experienced in the cold for- 
 mahty of his father's conduct, seemed to 
 shew how vainly he had made that sacrifice, 
 
STRAWBERRY HELL. 79 
 
 whilst forcing on him the conviction that 
 now he had lost all and could gain no- 
 thing. 
 
 But with the young, despondency makes 
 but a brief sojourn: Horace Walpole had 
 become possessed of new duties and respon- 
 sibilities sufficient to keep his mind too 
 actively employed to indulge, to any inju- 
 rious extent, in unprofitable repinings. He 
 had chosen his vocation. To him, thou^^h 
 the Past offered no solace, the Future had 
 at least ambition. 
 
 " Come back to the breakfast room," cried 
 Ills cousin laugliingiy, dragging him towards 
 the door; " Hanbury Williams has ^vritten a 
 new song, which has made all our sides 
 ache, and caused Sehvyn to be ^^ide awake 
 for five minutes ; you must come and hear 
 it." 
 
 Unresistingly Horace allowed himself to 
 be led in the required direction. 
 
80 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PRI^'CE FREDERICK AND COMPANY. 
 
 Why it was, or liow it was, has ever been 
 a mystery, and a mystery it is believed 
 must ever remain ; but so it was : the Royal 
 Family of England, for the first two or three 
 generations of the Hanoverian d}Tiasty, were 
 remarkable for their disHke of each other 
 in the direct line. George L hated his heir, 
 and his heir returned the compliment with 
 interest. George II. did ditto to his father, 
 in his domestic account "with his Prince of 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 81 
 
 Wales; and the prince followed the prece- 
 dent that had been set hun by his progeni- 
 tor, with a cordiality that must have satis- 
 fied the most sceptical that he came of the 
 true stock. 
 
 There must have been some pecuHarit}' 
 in the blood of the Brunswick Luneburg 
 race, to have created this curious charac- 
 teristic. We know that fathers may have 
 flinty hearts, and that sons do occasionall}' 
 shew any tiling but a proper degree of affec- 
 tion for their "governors;" but such are 
 ordinary fathers and sons. The divinity 
 that is said to hedge a king, ought, we hum- 
 bly conceive, to have fenced in the Majes- 
 ties of George the First and Second from 
 such vulgar squabbles as disturb the peace 
 of \Tilgar families. But it appeared very 
 much as though these Hanoverian heirs- 
 were a species of royal cuckoo, that each in 
 his turn, as soon as he was well fledged, 
 and arrived at his full strength, sought to 
 tumble the old birds out of their nest, and 
 
 e3 
 
82 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 take the whole accommodation of it to him- 
 self. 
 
 We don't pretend to say that there are 
 no cases on record in which princes have 
 shewn themselves unpatient of their fathers' 
 rule. We have in our memory as fine a 
 collection of family jars as ever were fabri- 
 cated out of royal clay; but then such 
 things were always managed in a princely 
 fashion. If an eldest son had a domestic 
 grievance to complain of, he rallied his 
 friends around him, proclaimed his quarrel 
 to the world at the head of an army, marched 
 against the parental banner, and it has 
 more than once happened, given liis impe- 
 rial father a sound drubbing preliminary to 
 turning him out of his throne. Now this 
 was not exactly filial — we question if it w^as 
 quite respectful — but then there is some- 
 thing characteristic in it — it is a princely 
 way of doing such things. 
 
 In another case, an old gentleman, in the 
 full enjoyment of his dignities, suddenly 
 
STRAAVBEREY HILL. 83 
 
 receives intelligence of the revolt of a dis- 
 tant part of his dominions, with the object 
 of obtaining the throne for his heir. Does 
 he weep ''tears such as royal fathers shed,"' 
 and denounce his son's ingratitude and his 
 subjects' rebeUion! Not a bit of it. He 
 calls for his armour and collects his forces ; 
 at the head of his invincible squadrons 
 charges the rebels; disperses them to the 
 four winds ; takes his son prisoner ; and — 
 chops his head off. This is not, in every 
 respect, so parental, perhaps, as might be 
 desired. Such conduct could not be quite 
 natural in ordinary fathers of families ; but 
 then, could anything be more truly royal ? 
 
 But the members of the ancient house of 
 Guelph chose to quarrel A\ith each other — 
 certainly in a much safer, • assuredly in a 
 less creditable fashion. The king and the 
 heir-apparent squabbled like two ancient 
 fish-women for a customer ; they carried on 
 their rivalry at a safe distance, but near 
 enough to allow of their vituperative elo- 
 
84 STRAWBERRY HELL. 
 
 quence having such a range as would con- 
 vey it with full force against its object — 
 they warred not with weapons but with 
 words. They would not shock the civilised 
 world by descending to fight hke gentle- 
 men; they only abused each other like 
 pickpockets. 
 
 George I. denounced his son as a scoun- 
 drel. George II. did the same. George 
 Prince of Wales regarded his parent mtli 
 abhorrence — Frederick Prince of Wales 
 entertained exactly similar feelings. This 
 hereditary hatred acted like the system of 
 fagging at our great schools — the successor, 
 notwithstanding the terrible extent to which 
 he must have suffered in his subordinate 
 state, cultivating the same tyranny over 
 his subordinate with all his power and ma- 
 lice. 
 
 The reason of their being such exact 
 counterparts of each other can be logically 
 explained : — 
 
 1. We have many reasons for suspecting 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 85 
 
 the first of our Hanoverian sovereigns to 
 have been thoroughly heartless. 
 
 2. We have looked in vain at his actions 
 for any evidence of mind. 
 
 3. Without heart and head, such a king 
 must have been little better than an old 
 block. 
 
 We must not be surprised, then, to find 
 his son and grandson such perfect " chips 
 of the old block." 
 
 Prince Frederick is the only member of 
 this royal family with whom our story has 
 anything to do at present ; and as he hap- 
 pens to be one our readers are likely to 
 have heard comparatively little about, we 
 shall proceed to introduce his Royal High- 
 ness, as much at full length as possible. 
 
 Frederick, Prince of Wales, was contem- 
 porary as well as namesake of that illus- 
 trious royal commander who had succeeded 
 to the throne of Prussia — we verily believe, 
 only to shew that there could be a Frede- 
 rick the Little as well as a Frederick the 
 
86 STR.VWBERRY 11U.L. 
 
 Great. He had arrived at man's estate, 
 with as little sense of manhood about 
 him as of any other sense of which it was 
 likely he could make a creditable use. He 
 had been educated in Hanover — of course 
 in the same school in which his father and 
 grandfather had picked up their education. 
 It must have been a curious system of scho- 
 lastic study of which they had the advan- 
 tage. "WTiether it boasted of a royal road 
 to mathematics, as well as to other branches 
 of learning, has not been made known to 
 us; but, as far as can be judged of it, it 
 combined the elements of folly with the 
 higher blanches of licentiousness. 
 
 \Yhere there was vice at the foundation, 
 it is unreasonable to expect much virtue in 
 the superstructure. Indeed, that did not 
 seem to enter into the design — for where 
 mistresses were employed as the Caryatida? 
 of the edifice, it was clear enough the main 
 features of the elevation were profligacy and 
 wickedness. 
 
STILVWBERRY HILL. 87 
 
 At the period of our story, Prince Frede- 
 rick was a husband and a father. If we 
 could employ the term husband-german, 
 and father-german, in the same sense as 
 cousin -german, we should convey a very 
 correct idea, in more senses than one, of the 
 sort of distant relationship he bore to his 
 wife and family. But the Princes of the 
 House of Hanover had been brought up in a 
 peculiar independence of family ties, and 
 with a disposition equally peculiar for ties 
 of a more familiar and less sacred character. 
 Their tastes were very homely, yet were 
 quite at variance with whatever belonged to 
 home ; as ^dtness in the instance of Georo^e I. 
 those female oo^res, the Schulenburor and the 
 Kielmansegge — in that of George II. the 
 unfascinating Wallmoden — in that of Prince 
 Frederick, half a dozen " Cynthias of the 
 minute," equally notorious for the humility 
 of their attractions, and the imposing way in 
 which they were employed. 
 
 Yet his Poyal Highness had one attach- 
 
88 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ment that, at least, with those easily pleased, 
 might have been considered rational. As 
 among the blind the one-eyed is a king, 
 among the plain faces of the Prince of 
 Wales's favourites, the moderately good- 
 looking features of Lady Archibald Hamil- 
 ton allowed her the claims of a beauty. The 
 Prince shared the rather frequent foible of 
 such exalted personages, of preferring other 
 men's wives to their own — a compliment to 
 the superior taste of the husband, which it 
 is to be hoped the gentleman sufficiently 
 appreciated. Lady Hamilton was a wife 
 and a mother. It was no doubt a great 
 honour for the seventh son of a Duke to pos- 
 sess a wife who pleased the Heir- Apparent ; 
 and possibly their son. Sir William Hamilton, 
 subsequently so well known for his lady's 
 intimacy with Xelson, and other acquaint- 
 ances of the like kind — as the play-bills have 
 it, " too numerous to mention"— found con- 
 solation m the remembrance, that whatever 
 his wife was, his mother had been. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 89 
 
 But Lady Archibald, though a Venus 
 more in inclination than in appearance, 
 could render herself not only agreeable but 
 fascinating. There are some women, of but 
 second-rate attractions, who possess a manner 
 that renders them a vast deal more alluring 
 than their more beautiful contemporaries. 
 Her Ladyship possessed tliis manner in a very 
 eminent degree ; and having acquired from 
 nature a disposition for gallantry, she seemed 
 to have no intention of letting it lay fallow. 
 
 The Prince of Wales was her acknow- 
 ledged lover, and Lord Hamilton her ac- 
 knowledged husband. But her capacious 
 heart yearned to disperse its sensibilities 
 over a more extensive field. She longed for 
 more lovers and more husbands. She there- 
 fore sought conquests in various directions, 
 unkno^vn, of course, to her royal gallant, 
 and, it is to be hoped, quite as much so to 
 her noble partner. 
 
 There was another feature in Lady Archi- 
 bald's character. The Prince, under the 
 
90 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 influence of her fascinations, chose to make 
 her Ladyship the depositary of all his poli- 
 tical secrets, which the sagacious lady always 
 contrived to dispose of in another quarter 
 for the best terms she could command. She 
 did not profess to have any politics. Indeed, 
 although she had never heard the line, she 
 would not have been disposed 
 
 " To party to give what was meant for mankind." 
 
 The reader must therefore be prepared to 
 find the Heir-Apparent's favourite mistress 
 occasionally falling into very strange com- 
 pany, and occasionally engaged in very 
 strange scenes. 
 
 Prince Frederick had quarrelled with his 
 royal father so often, that use had made 
 quarrelling mth him a second nature. His 
 head had got filled — and it wanted filling 
 terribly — with vague notions of the dignity 
 and consequence of his position as Heir- 
 Apparent. His father, he began to imagine, 
 kept him upon an inadequate allowance. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 91 
 
 He was very mucli in debt, as Heirs -Apparent 
 so rapidly contrive to be ; and took especial 
 care every one should know that this was 
 through his parent's parsimony. 
 
 As he took no pains to conceal how much 
 he was opposed to the King, the political 
 party who were in opposition to the govern- 
 ment paid great court to him. It is singular 
 how invariably Oppositions patronize the 
 son of the Sovereign in preference to the 
 Sovereign himself; and the more disobedient 
 and contumelious he becomes, the more 
 devotedly they commend themselves to his 
 service. 
 
 The Prince of Wales was well aware of 
 the power of the Tory party to render him 
 formidable. Like persons of limited capacity 
 generally, he had a quick eye to his o^vn 
 interests, and this sharpness of vision he 
 often betrayed in a manner infinitely less 
 respectable than banding with the opponents 
 of his father's government. The leaders of 
 the Opposition had also their selfish objects 
 
92 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 in view. They regarded him as the best 
 court card in their hands, and had hopes of 
 playing him successfully against the King. 
 These leaders comprised, in the House of 
 Commons, Sir William Wyndham, a powerful 
 debater, and one of the ablest Tories of the 
 day, and Mr. Pulteney, a patriotic orator of 
 vast experience and little virtue, impelled 
 on his course by the most bitter hostility to 
 his great rival. Sir Robert AYalpole. 
 
 There were many other able men of the 
 same party ; but Pulteney and Wyndham are 
 the most important, and shall have due 
 respect at our hands. They were admitted 
 into the Prince's counsels: but the chief ad- 
 viser of his Royal Highness, and who was 
 on the most familiar footing with him, was 
 another Tory Member, possessed of two 
 boroughs and very elastic principles. 
 
 With Bubb Doddington, the Prince was in 
 the habit of being extremely confidential and 
 familiar — as often condescending to make a 
 butt as a dupe of him. For him, too, he 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 93 
 
 would prove the intensity of his friendship 
 by borroTsing considerable sums ; but as the 
 Prince did so without the most remote in- 
 tention of repaying the money, it ought to 
 be resrarded as a much more strikin^r act of 
 condescension; for accepting a gift is, one 
 would think, infinitely more gracious than 
 accepting a loan. 
 
 Bubb Doddington possessed a great deal 
 more ambition than sagacity — he worshipped 
 the rising sun, and allowed his thousands to 
 disappear from his pockets in a manner that, 
 whilst it shewed wonderful ingenuity in the 
 extractor, betrayed much too secure a con- 
 \'iction in the extracted that tliej were a 
 golden seed, which, in due time, should 
 \ield a most abundant harvest. 
 
 But though Bubb Doddington was the 
 most intimate of the Prince's counsellors, 
 his Royal Highness had the good fortune to 
 possess another who had obtained a much 
 greater degree of influence over him. With 
 this person his consultations were rigidly 
 
94 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 secret. Few were aware how often the 
 Prince rode in a certain direction ; a much 
 more hmited number were cognizant of 
 these rides terminating at the villa of one of 
 the ablest spirits of his time. 
 
 Henry St. John Viscount Bolingbroke 
 took a vast deal of pains to convince his 
 contemporaries that he was a philosopher ; 
 his labours were not less great to satisfy 
 them that he was a statesman. He had 
 heard that extremes meet, and possibly he 
 entertained the idea of dovetailing them in 
 the combination he put forth to the world in 
 his own proper person. We believe he did 
 this with such marked success, that posterity 
 have come to the conclusion that his philo- 
 sophy and statesmanship ended exactly 
 where they began. 
 
 St. John w^as now the gravest of philo- 
 sophers — in the tmnkling of an eye the 
 gayest of men of pleasure ; you scarcely had 
 time to admire the excess of his enjoyment, 
 when he suddenly changed to the most ab- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 95 
 
 sorbed of politicians : and whilst you were 
 lost in wonder at his complete abandonment 
 to the war of parties, lo ! and behold ! he was 
 all for contemplation, primitive manners, 
 and a hermitage. 
 
 We first find him exerting himself to be- 
 come a public character towards the close 
 of the reign of Queen Anne. His busy 
 brain was ever intriguing; but, in conse- 
 quence of some unhappy obliquity of intelli- 
 gence, he usually managed to attach himself 
 to the unsuccessful party. When the Queen 
 was dying, he intrigued to bring in a suc- 
 cessor ; but somehow, in spite of all he could 
 do or say, the Elector of Hanover came in, 
 and the Chevalier St. George was kept out. 
 
 Although St. John might have accommo- 
 dated himself to this disappointment had he 
 been allowed, it so happened he was not; 
 and finding that King George would not 
 employ him, he went over to the Chevaher, 
 who would. But the service of a Pretender, 
 he soon found, required more philosophy and 
 
96 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 more statesmanship than even he had at his 
 command ; and in fit of distaste for public 
 life Xo. 1, he retired into privacy, and pro- 
 fessed himself charmed ^\ith the delights of 
 solitude and a French cottage. 
 
 Exquisite as was this quiet way of life to 
 the philosophic statesman, he felt " there 
 was something more exquisite still " in the 
 employment of his great talents in the great 
 field for which he knew them to be so well 
 adapted. He diso-wned his Jacobitism — he 
 professed himself a steady supporter of the 
 Hanoverian succession — he wished to have 
 nothing more to do with politics — and he 
 declared himself only a harmless ^philosopher, 
 Avho desired to be allowed to end his days 
 in the study of virtue, in some tranquil 
 corner of his native land. 
 
 He intrigued quietly, but very actively, for 
 the favour he sought. The banished man 
 oAvned his error, and promised an amended 
 life. It so happened that amongst the King's 
 ministers was one who knew him thorouo'hly. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 97 
 
 Sir Kobert Walpole and St. John had been 
 schoolfellows. Walpole was too well ac- 
 quainted witli his old friend's meddling 
 spirit, to place much confidence in his pre- 
 sent professions. He opposed his recall ; but 
 a bribe of eleven thousand pounds to the 
 King's ugly favourite overpowered his influ- 
 ence at the Council, and the philosopher 
 was permitted to breathe his native air. 
 
 At first he did nothing but speak in 
 apothegms, and shew his intense enjoyment 
 of the society of a few chosen friends, his 
 inestimable books, and the simple pleasures of 
 a country life. In a short time the superi- 
 ority of his schoolfellow, whom he was pleased 
 to think so greatly inferior to him in all the 
 higher qualifications of a minister — whom 
 he considered to be no philosopher, and very 
 little of a statesman, — rose up before him — 
 disturbing his studies, marring his felicity, 
 and destroying his peace of mind. Whether 
 he affected to be Cincinnatus in the fields, 
 or Pliny in the garden, — assumed the bear- 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
98 STRA^VBERRY HILL. 
 
 iiig of a Mecasnas among men of letters, or a 
 Lorenzo de Medicis in patronizing art — the 
 figure of Sir Robert Walpole cast an envious 
 shadow over his contentment, and his phi- 
 losophy at once became prodigiously at 
 fault. 
 
 Gradually he increased the circle of his 
 friends till they comprised the leading Tories, 
 and several of the most eminent public men 
 of the day. He entertained at his table the 
 most powerful writers ; he became a liberal 
 patron to whoever had talent of any available 
 sort — pamphleteers, poets, satirists, painters, 
 and orators, found him a cordial friend, and 
 an admirable adviser. He set on foot a 
 periodical called " The Craftsman," in which 
 he endeavoured to make his countrjTuen fa- 
 miliar with the various qualities of his great 
 mind, and did not forget to shew them the 
 remarkable deficiency in all such qualities 
 in the mind of his rival. 
 
 It is on record that St. John, about this 
 time, assumed to be on friendly terms with 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 99 
 
 Walpole, who permitted his being introduced 
 to the King, and, in the same kindly spirit, 
 invited him to be his guest at his quiet sub- 
 urban villa at Chelsea. The sight of the 
 comfort, the equanimity, the prosperous 
 greatness of his hated rival, was too much for 
 the disappointed politician; envy got the 
 better of his philosophy, and so affected his 
 stomach, that the first mouthful he took of 
 the handsome banquet set before him, stuck 
 in his throat ; and the only way to conceal 
 his overpowering feelings he could adopt, 
 was a hasty withdrawal from the Minister's 
 hospitable board, on the plea of sudden in- 
 disposition. 
 
 After this he exerted himself more strenu- 
 ously than ever against his old schoolfellow; 
 and managed to acquire in an indirect way so 
 much influence with the King, as ultimately 
 to create a prejudice in the Royal mind, 
 that threatened the immediate dismissal of 
 his Majesty's tried servant. It was confi- 
 dently asserted, in what were considered the 
 
 F 2 
 
100 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 best-informed circles, that Walpole was 
 about to be dismissed, and that St. John 
 was to obtain his place. One unlooked-for 
 event disposed of the whole intrigue. The 
 King died ; his successor would have nothing 
 to do with the busy plotter ; and, in fit of dis- 
 taste for public life No. 2, St. John retired 
 to his quiet hermitage, and again shut 
 himself from the world, and again vowed to 
 devote himself to philosophy and solitude. 
 
 This fit had lasted its proper interval. 
 Sir Robert Walpole was in possession of 
 greater power than ever; and now his bril- 
 liant, specious, hollow, envious rival, was 
 enoraofed in another intri2:ue for his over- 
 throw, — devoting himself to it mth an in- 
 tensity of purpose, that appeared likely to 
 be satisfied with nothing short of his de- 
 struction. He had not got hold of a king 
 this time to work upon — he had a much 
 more pliable material. He had contrived to 
 impress upon the thoughtless, selfish, reck- 
 less Prince Frederick, that he was the only 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 101 
 
 man in England whose counsel could be of 
 advantasfe to him. There was a certain 
 garden-house erected at the extremity of the 
 flower-o^arden attached to Lord Bolinirbroke's 
 villa at Dawley, that was fitted up with won- 
 derful taste — Arcadian scenes worthy of the 
 pencil of Watteau or Lancret, were painted 
 in flowery compartments in the panelling 
 — a small book-case of choice volumes 
 attracted the reflective to study — luxurious 
 couches and easy chairs tempted the indolent 
 to repose — a marble table presented the 
 finest fruits and flowers — and in a gay 
 marqueterie commode were usually some 
 extremely rare wines, with " all appliances 
 and means to boot " for an exquisite repast. 
 This formed the usual cell of the philoso- 
 phical Statesman. Here, in his fits of soli- 
 tude, he shut himself from the world, and 
 here he dreamt of impossible virtue on a 
 down cushion; and, whilst filhng himself 
 with claret and ratefies, fancied he was an 
 anchorite, disgusted with the vanities of the 
 
102 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 world. The garden-house was certainly a very 
 pretty retirement. It could boast of other 
 advantages. AVhen the fit of philosophy was 
 subsidinir, and the arts of the statesman were 
 again coming into play, its possessing a door 
 leading into an unfrequented green lane, 
 made it a most desirable place for a secret 
 meetinof: and here had often come more 
 than one of the leading Tory Members, to 
 arrange wdth the clever, briUiant, slippery 
 politician, the plan of a campaign against 
 the existing Government. 
 
 At the period to which we are now refer- 
 ing, the room contained two individuals. 
 One, a man of insignificant stature and mean 
 appearance, was seated at his ease in a luxu- 
 rious fauteuil, with a handsome three-cor- 
 nered hat on his head, and a golden tooth- 
 pick in his hand. His riding coat thro^vn 
 open, displayed a star on the breast of his 
 inner coat. The fine materials of his dress, 
 and the handsome manner in which they 
 were put together, proclaimed the wearer to 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 10 
 
 Q 
 
 be a person of distinction. He might still 
 be considered young, and was not ill-looking ; 
 his complexion being fair, and each feature 
 well-developed. The general expression was 
 that of self-satisfaction and complacency. 
 He had evidently been enjoying himself, — 
 which mio'ht account for the stratified air 
 which then illumined liis somewhat too unin- 
 tellectual countenance. 
 
 The other inmate of the garden-house was 
 to all appearance a well-dressed and well-bred 
 man of fashion — of tall — of even command- 
 ing figure, with a fine intelligent look, 
 gaining its animation from a pair of eyes 
 remarkable for their subtle expression. The 
 countenance was now brimming over, as it 
 were, w^th courtesy and respect, as, standing 
 upright, and leaning on the back of the 
 chair on Avhich his companion was seated, 
 he continued to address him. 
 
 These two individuals were Frederick 
 Prince of Wales, and St. John A^iscount 
 Bolingbroke. 
 
104 STRAAVBERRY HILL. 
 
 Bolingbroke was unrivalled as a conver- 
 sationalist ; possessing an extraordinary fas- 
 cination of manner, with a remarkable bril- 
 liancy of discourse, that won towards him 
 many persons who would otherwise have 
 kept aloof from his intrigues. His attain- 
 ments, too, were of a high order. If he was 
 not entitled to the distinction of being very 
 philosophical, it must be allowed that he 
 wrote and spoke in a manner that would 
 have conferred credit on more than one phi- 
 losopher whose greatness has never been 
 challenged. It was a thousand pities that a 
 man with so great a mind should sometunes 
 have she^vn so little a soul. 
 
 By the way, it is a somewhat singular coin- 
 cidence, that the present and two preceding 
 centuries should have had its " busy B," each 
 as greatly to be admired as little to be 
 trusted. The seventeenth century produced 
 Bacon — the eighteenth, Bohngbroke — and 
 the nineteenth, one too notorious to require 
 naming — a triumvirate of eccentric genius 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 105 
 
 no Other country could have brought 
 forth. 
 
 The interview had already lasted some 
 time ; but whether his Royal Highness was 
 fascinated with the excellent wine of his 
 entertainer, or with his equally inspiriting 
 discourse, he shewed no symptoms of taking 
 his departure, but kept sippmg from his oft- 
 replenished glass, and listening to his ever- 
 attentive host, as though both claims on his 
 attention should have his best consideration. 
 
 The discourse must have had in it some- 
 thing unusually persuasive : its sonorous 
 apothegms — its eloquent declamation — its 
 transcendent philosophy — must have made 
 an unusual impression on the Heir Apparent. 
 Xor must we forget the consummate skill 
 with which it was adapted to the limited 
 intelligence that it was expected was to 
 profit by it. 
 
 The Prince listened, pretending that he 
 understood every word spoken by the bril- 
 liant plotter. The well-directed appeals to 
 
 F 3 
 
106 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 his vanity effected more than would have 
 done the most urgent appeals to his under- 
 standing. Perhaps it never struck the clever 
 statesman, how extremely inconsistent was 
 the part he was playing. He quite forgot 
 how eagerly he had once plotted to shut 
 out from all prospect of the throne the 
 Prince he was now counselling to take a 
 bold step in opposition to his father's Go- 
 vernment. But he had now no thought of 
 the Pretender — it is very likely he cared 
 quite as little for every member of the Han- 
 overian dynasty — he cared but for one ob- 
 ject, he entertained but one idea — to make 
 use of the Prince of Wales as an agent 
 likely to ensure the success of his grand 
 scheme — to work the overthrow of his hated 
 rival. 
 
 " The times never were so ripe for a 
 change as at present, your Royal High- 
 ness," he observed, by way of conclusion ; 
 " Walpole totters in his giddy elevation like 
 an architrave too heavy for the slender 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 107 
 
 pillar on which it has been mounted. He is 
 threatened both from within and ANithout — 
 from his own coadjutors quite as much as 
 from the most determined of his opponents. 
 Newcastle hates him — Townshend has taken 
 offence at some imao^ined slio-ht: few of 
 them can brook his airs of superiority and 
 assumed omnipotence with his Sovereign. 
 
 '^ The Tories, as a party, are daily at- 
 tacking him with greater boldness. There 
 is a powerfiil body of members of the 
 House of Commons, amongst whom AV;^Tid- 
 ham, Pulteney, and Marchmont are antago- 
 nists at whose powerful voices he has long 
 learned to tremble. There are men of great 
 parts and influence in the House of Peers, 
 who hold the name of the Minister in equal 
 detestation. 
 
 " A combined attack is about being made 
 upon him — certainly the most formidable 
 he has ever had to defend himself against : 
 let this be followed up by the proposed 
 movement on the part of your Royal High- 
 
108 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ness — and I, who only desire to be consi- 
 dered the most humble of your Royal High- 
 ness's well-wishers, will venture to state that 
 the result will be the disgrace of an incom- 
 petent Minister, and the elevation to his 
 proper position in the eyes of the EngHsh 
 people, of a Prince who has given so many 
 assurances that he is born to secure their 
 prosperity." 
 
 " That is just my way of thinking," re- 
 plied the young man with admirable non- 
 chalance, as he rose from his seat and began 
 to adjust his riding-coat. " My father is not, 
 ill my opinion, likely to live much longer. 
 I should like prodigiously to know how 
 much longer it is possible for him to live." 
 
 " That is not, I am afraid, a question ca- 
 pable of a ready solution," observed his phi- 
 losophic counsellor. '' Life is uncertain to 
 us all ; but with the aged, dissolution must 
 be a matter of daily expectation." 
 
 " He breaks fast," pithily observed his 
 hopeful son. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 109 
 
 " The signs of decay in his Majesty's 
 frame, it must be allowed, are becoming 
 more and more conspicuous," said his equally 
 hopeful counsellor. " Death, moreover, is 
 our common obliiration to Xature ; and if the 
 account has been long standing, we are the 
 less likely to be allowed to defer the pay- 
 ment." 
 
 " TMien I succeed to the throne," added 
 the eager Heir Apparent, as he drew on his 
 gloves, " I shall bear in mind the exertions 
 of my friends in my behalf." 
 
 " Such ideas are worthy of your Royal 
 Highness's generosity of mind. But," said 
 his Lordship, with a marked air of self- 
 denial, '' if I may be allowed to speak of so 
 humble an individual as myself, I must beg 
 to assure your Royal Highness that office 
 has no charms for me. I have foresworn 
 ambition, to study virtue — I renounce poli- 
 tics in favour of philosophy." 
 
 AMiether the amiable Telemachus put any 
 faith in the professions of liis skilful Mentor 
 
110 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 does not appear. He almost immediately 
 took his leave, and mounting his horse, 
 which was in waiting close at hand, he rode 
 towards town with the full intention of 
 losing no time in taking the bold step 
 which had been represented as so certain of 
 advantage to him. 
 
 " Now I have him!" exclaimed the stu- 
 dent of \'irtue, with much bitterness of em- 
 phasis, as, left alone in his luxurious retire- 
 ment, he paced its confined limits with 
 uneasy strides. " Walpole ! the star which 
 has been kept so long out of its sphere, now 
 rapidly approaches to hurl you from yours ! 
 Though more than once balked of my re- 
 venge, I feel agreeably assured it is now 
 within my grasp." 
 
 Had the great Minister's younger son, 
 who, notwithstanding he felt himself dis- 
 carded from his father's house and heart, 
 was thoroughly devoted to his father's 
 interests, been aware of tliis secret and well- 
 devised plot to ruin liim, it would have 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. Ill 
 
 offered the occasion he so much desired, 
 to prove the depth of that attachment to 
 his person that prompted all his thoughts 
 and actions. But Horace was lamenting 
 the forced estrangement he had no power 
 to prevent, — except when his rebeUious 
 thoucrhts ventured into a direction even less 
 likely to afford his troubled mind the con- 
 solation which he required. But had he 
 entertained a surmise of his father's danger, 
 not a moment Avould he have suffered to 
 elapse before he had substituted action for 
 reflection. 
 
112 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE SUPPER-CLL^ AT "tHE ADMIRAL \T:RN0N.' 
 
 There was a vast display of bustling pre- 
 paration amongst the individuals composing 
 tlie establishment of " The Admiral Vernon," 
 a small pubHc-house situated in one of the 
 bye-streets of Soho. It was club night; and 
 the bustling little publican and his bustling 
 little wife, assisted by a still more active 
 waiter and maid-of-all-work, were employ- 
 ing their best exertions in seeing that the 
 long table in the supper-room was properly 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 113 
 
 laid — the uncushioned oak chairs set in 
 their proper places — the floor properly 
 sanded — the supper in a proper state of 
 forwardness — the candles lit — the kettle 
 boiling — the pipes laid out — the spoons 
 counted — and the plates hot : in short, that 
 every thing was exactly where it should be, 
 so that no fault could be found by any of 
 the extremely difficult-to-be-pleased persons 
 whom, it was evident, the anxious landlord 
 momentarily exi:)ected. 
 
 Xo doubt, " The Admiral Vemon" was 
 to be honoured that night by a party of 
 yery fastidious convives^ who could enjoy 
 " the feast of reason and the flow of soul," 
 only when the said feast was '' done to a 
 turn," and the said flow was exactlv of the 
 right temperature, strength, and sweetness. 
 ^lost probably they were a select circle of 
 Epicureans, who met together to enjoy, in 
 the unceremonious freedom allowed at a 
 tavern, a sociality too refined and parti- 
 cular to be permitted in their own homes. 
 
114 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 Perhaps some such highly respectable as- 
 semblage as have found immortality in the 
 pleasant pages of the Spectator, in which 
 persons of birth and fashion mingled, and 
 found enjoyments which they prized quite 
 as highly as their more luxurious successors 
 prize the attractions of the Eeform or the 
 Conservative Club. 
 
 The landlord was in his best blue coat and 
 ^vig — the landlady in her best chintz gown 
 and apron — the waiter and maid-of-all-work 
 were sporting their cleanest face and hands, 
 — ^in short the inmates of " The Admiral Ver- 
 non" were quite ready to receive their very 
 particular company; and as the hands of 
 the great clock in the room indicated an 
 immediate approach to the hour of eight, 
 they were all well aware their very parti- 
 cular company might be looked for every 
 minute. 
 
 " I think there 's nothing to find fault 
 about," said the landlord, in a somewhat 
 tremulous tone, to his wife, as he took a 
 
STEAWBERRY HILL. 115 
 
 last careful scrutiny of the preparations of 
 the supper-table — clearly impressed with 
 the notion, that if there should be anything 
 amiss, it was likely to go hard with him. 
 
 The wife also gave her scrutiny. The 
 result was perfectly satisfactory. The waiter 
 and maid-of-all-work, with the same nervous 
 apprehension, gave theirs ; and a very heavy' 
 load seemed taken off their several minds 
 when they had ascertained beyond a doubt 
 all was exactly as it ought to be. 
 
 "Jane," added the landlord, "go to the 
 bar, to be in readiness to receive them. 
 Jem," he called to the waiter, " run to the 
 front door, and see if any on 'em are coming. 
 And Sally," he added, "you take care 
 every thing 's dished as though you was 
 doing it for a wager, so as they don't blow 
 me up for being kept waiting." 
 
 Each of the trio obeyed with alacrity the 
 directions he or she had received, and the 
 master of the house busied himself a few 
 moments in placing the chairs at what he 
 
IIG STRAWBERRY HELL. 
 
 thought the most correct distance from the 
 table. The attention he paid to such 
 minutia}, shewed either how extremely care- 
 ful he was to leave no room for dissatisfac- 
 tion, or the strong impression there was on 
 his mind of the difficulty there existed of 
 pleasing the parties whose comfort he had 
 been so anxiously endeavouring to secure. 
 In the midst of his employment at the 
 further end of the room, he thought he 
 heard a noise. He felt assured some mem- 
 bers of the Club had arrived. 
 
 There was a little rustling in the passage, 
 and he heard his wife's voice crying "Oh fie 
 now!" He couldn't mistake the sound that 
 followed. But the man was something of a 
 philosopher ; he felt satisfied it was far better 
 of two evils to choose the least ; he was well 
 aware his customers could not be breaking 
 his head while they were kissing his -vvife. 
 He listened, and heard a familiar voice that 
 made him shake in his shoes. 
 
 " Adorable creature ! I am infinitely de- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 117 
 
 lighted to find you alone. Allow me to say 
 you are looking a million times more charm- 
 ing than ever. Positively, my dear, such 
 prodigious perfections are quite thrown 
 away upon that everlasting rascal. He is a 
 low feUow, unworthy to touch your seraphic 
 shoe-tie. Cursed low fellow, poz." 
 
 *'Pray, let me go. Goodness gracious!" 
 " Indeed, my dear, you are buried, lost, 
 cast away, in such a vulgar place as this. 
 Those matchless beauties were born to 
 grace a higher spear. Don't you think so, 
 Duke?" 
 
 "Of coorth, I do, Marquith!" was the 
 lisping reply in another voice. 
 
 "Incomparable charmer!" resumed the 
 first voice, in impassioned tones, "exquisite 
 epitome of your sex's perfections ! AVhy will 
 you tolerate that everlasting rascal? He is 
 too low a feUow for the society of so di\ine 
 a creature. Isn't he, Duke?" 
 
 " Dethidedly, Marquith," was the ready 
 response. 
 
118 STRAAVBERRY HILL. 
 
 If the trembling little publican was in the 
 habit of looking at the bright side of things, 
 like the gay-hearted Captain Conway, he 
 ought to have derived very great consolation 
 from the knowledge, that if his wife had ad- 
 mirers, they were worth boasting of. A 
 ]\Iarquis and a Duke were surely high enough 
 to satisfy the ambition of any husband. 
 His company might well be fastidious, if 
 these were to be regarded as a sample of 
 them. But he did not seem very much 
 puffed up with this gratifying reflection. 
 He was intently listening, vdth a face in 
 which fear was struggling with curiosity. 
 No doubt he stood very much in awe of his 
 noble customers. 
 
 But whatever were his reflections, they 
 were brought to a sudden conclusion, by the 
 waiter entering the room as hurriedly as if 
 he had been shot out of a cannon. He had 
 been hurled forward at the imminent risk of 
 dislocating his neck, and saved his own bones 
 by nearly breaking those of his master, with 
 
STRAA^TBERRY HILL. 119 
 
 whom he came in contact as the latter was 
 approachmg the door. 
 
 " So you were listening, were you, you 
 everlasting rascal!" exclaimed the voice of 
 the person styled ^larquis, rapidly follomng 
 the waiter, accompanied by his ducal com- 
 panion. 
 
 Could it be possible? Yes, it was pos- 
 sible. The noble gallant, who had so stig- 
 matized the 2^001* publican as a " low-born 
 fellow," was in a suit of sky blue livery, 
 turned up with crimson; his companion, 
 whom he had addressed as "Duke," wore 
 another, still more showy, of scarlet and gold. 
 
 Xeither the landlord nor his waiter seemed 
 in the least deo^ree astonished at beholdinir 
 such apparently distinguished personages 
 come swaggering towards them, making the 
 most of their five-feet-eleven, vdth footmen's 
 laced hats upon their heads, and wearing a 
 costume so derogatory. The reason for 
 which soon appeared in the influx into the 
 room of several men similarly clad. 
 
120 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 This diversion appeared to be the salvation 
 of the poor waiter. He managed to slip 
 out of the room while the new comers were 
 paying their compliments to those who had 
 preceded them. 
 
 " Marquis, your most obedient ! Duke, I 
 kiss your hand." 
 
 " Ah, Sir William ! Ah, General ! I protest 
 I 'm monstrous glad to see you looking so 
 weU." 
 
 « 
 
 *' Positively we haven't met for an age : 
 but then you know I 've been at Scarborough 
 such a prodigious time." 
 
 '' And an immensity of good it 's done 
 you. I vow to gad I should hardly have 
 kno^Mi you. The General 's quite another 
 man, isn't he, Duke." 
 
 " Yeth — quite another man, ]\Iarquith." 
 
 " I protest now you flatter me, ]\Iarquis — 
 you do indeed, Duke. Demme ! " 
 
 Such were the congratulations and re- 
 cognitions that passed between these per- 
 sonasres: and there was such an air of 
 
STRAWBERRY HELL. 121 
 
 fashionable aiFectation in their greetings, 
 that a stranger might have looked on in 
 doubt whether they held the exalted place 
 in society they assumed, or were only, as 
 was really the case, so many impudent 
 lacqueys aping the manners and assuming 
 the names of their masters. 
 
 More of the same fraternity arrived, who 
 went through much the same style of 
 greeting. Not the least amusing part of 
 the scene was the curious wav in whicli 
 titles were appropriated. It was ludicrous 
 enough to see a Duke in such parti-coloured 
 vestments; but when another flaunting 
 knight of the shoulder-knot was addressed 
 by the reverend appellation of Bishop, the 
 ridiculousness of the thing became still 
 more apparent. 
 
 During the last two or three minutes the 
 trembling little landlord had retained a 
 respectful position near the principal group 
 in the room, as though wishing to gain the 
 eye of the tall consequential personage 
 VOL. T. r. 
 
122 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 yclept ^Marquis: but that great man was 
 evidently not disposed to see his host, and 
 more than once plainly turned his back 
 upon him. Still the poor publican per- 
 severed, and Avitli a trembling anxiety in his 
 nervous fidgetty manner, that shewed he felt 
 it to be a part of his duty. His pertinacity 
 had the desired effect. 
 
 " Well, fellow, what are you doing here? " 
 inquired the great man, knitting his brows 
 very angrily, and putting his thumbs with 
 a consequential swagger into the arm-holes 
 of his flowery vest. 
 
 " If you please, a — a,"' stuttered the little 
 man, in a great fright — " I merely wished 
 to know, a — a — whether your worship 
 would Avish to have supper served directly." 
 " You did, did you, you everlasting ras- 
 cal?" fiercely demanded the other. "Damn 
 your impudence ; You 're a low fellow. Sir — 
 cursed low fellow. Isn't he, Duke?" 
 
 " Exthremely low fellow indeed, Mar- 
 quith," was that worthy's response. Other 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 123 
 
 expressions equally uncomplimentary came 
 pouring upon his devoted head, till the poor 
 man began to fear that he was likely to be 
 thrust out of his room much in the same expe- 
 ditious style his subordinate had so lately been 
 sent into it. The entrance of two more visi- 
 tors appeared to call off attention from him. 
 They were Oswald, who was hailed by every 
 one present as " Sir Robert," and a younger 
 companion who wore the same livery. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, advancing into the 
 room, " allow me to introduce a new mem- 
 ber to the Club. This is my excellent young 
 friend Mr. Fibbs, just returned from foreign 
 parts, where he has had the honour of filhng 
 the post of Gentleman's Gentleman to our 
 young master Horace Walpole, Esq. M.P., 
 Avith whom he still remains." 
 
 " I feel very proud of being made knoA\Ti 
 to so many distinguished persons," said a 
 young man of a smart figure and good- 
 looking features, that evidently did not lack 
 assurance, as he bowed very low to the com- 
 
 G 2 
 
124 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 pany — " Comment vous portez vous? as we 
 say in France." 
 
 ]\Iost of Mr. Fibbs's new associates lost 
 no time in paying their compliments and 
 offering their felicitations, as if quite happy 
 at making the acquaintance of so accom- 
 plished a traveller. 
 
 '' I vow to gad I am prodigious glad we 
 possess amongst us a gentleman of your 
 undoubted breeding," observed the sky-blue- 
 and-crimson Marquis. "It is not always 
 that new members come before us enjoying 
 your extensive accomplishments. I was in 
 France once myself — went there on a tower : 
 prodigious nice place, isn't it, Duke ?" 
 
 " Monthrouth nithe plathe, Marquith," 
 was the ready reply. 
 
 " Gentlemen, you do me honour," answered 
 the travelled valet : " I hope to be allowed 
 the satisfaction of paying my footing by a 
 bowl of punch ; and beg to assure you that 
 the proposal is quite co?i amore^ as we say in 
 Italv." 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 125 
 
 This generous resolution at once made 
 Mr. Fibbs extremely popular ^vith the mem- 
 bers of the Club. 
 
 \\Tiilst they are putting their cocked hats 
 on the row of pegs along the wall, and taking 
 their places at the table, agreeably to the 
 intimation that was given them that supper 
 was being served, we ^vill just beg permis- 
 sion to state, as the reader now, however, 
 may surmise, that the grand company whom 
 the trembling little landlord had anticipated 
 with so much anxiety, as though they were 
 the most fastidious aristocrats under the 
 sun, consisted of an association of upper 
 footmen, butlers, and valets, who were in the 
 habit of meetino^ to^-ether once a month, at 
 an obscure public house (kept by a man suffi- 
 ciently humble in spirit to endure their in- 
 solence), to wash down a hearty meal off 
 their favourite joint, with copious draughts 
 of their several favourite potations. 
 
 This favourite joint was invariably '' a leg 
 of mutton and trimmings ;" indeed, so popu- 
 
126 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 lar was it with them, that when, in conse- 
 quence of a considerable increase in the 
 members, something more was required to 
 satisfy all their appetites, it was put to the 
 vote whether another joint should be added, 
 and it was finally resolved unanimously, 
 " that they would have two legs of mutton 
 and two trimmings." 
 
 The supper table, surrounded as it was 
 by so many showy liveries, presented a sin- 
 gular if not an agreeable effect to the eye. 
 There were other features in it that seemed 
 to demand observation. At the head of the 
 long table sat Oswald; and in justice to him 
 it must be allowed that his bearing was that 
 of a chairman, quite aware of his own con- 
 sequence, and quite determined to maintain 
 it. He was a man advancing into years; 
 but his florid complexion, and clear, shrewd 
 grey eye, gave a freshness to his features, 
 that made many a good judge of age rank 
 him twenty years younger than he was; 
 then his plump face, surmounted by a capa- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 127 
 
 cious wig, gave an air of tranquil dignity to 
 his appearance that well became his seat of 
 office. 
 
 The Chairman had near liim the well-fed 
 and consequential ser^dtors of the Duke 
 of Xewcastle, Lord ToA\Tishend, General 
 Churchill, the Marquis of Rockingham, the 
 Bishop of London, and several other sup- 
 porters of Government, including the tra- 
 velled valet of Horace AValpole, who, though 
 a new member, had, thanks to his own im- 
 pudence, become as much at home amongst 
 them as the Chairman himself. 
 
 At the other end of the table sat a tall, 
 formal, half- sly, half- sarcastic-looking Scotch- 
 man, known as Sandie M'Foxie, the confi- 
 dential servant of Mr. Pulteney, between 
 whom and Oswald there was always a good 
 deal of skirmishing going on, proceeding, of 
 course, from the very opposite politics they 
 advocated, as representatives of their re- 
 spective masters, the two great political 
 chiefs of the AMiigs and the Tories. He was 
 
128 STKAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 supported on one side by the French valet 
 of Lord Bolingbroke, and on the other by the 
 English footman of Sir AVilliam Wyndham. 
 Next to the latter was a little sleek smirking 
 fellow, who acted as major-domo to Lady 
 Archibald Hamilton. The liveries of other 
 leaders of the Tories might have been seen 
 at this end of the table. In short, it was 
 very clear that there were two parties in* 
 '' The Upper Servants' Supper Club,^' and 
 that they ranged themselves under their 
 respective leaders — the Walpole party being 
 at top, the Pulteney party remaining at the 
 bottom of the table. 
 
 The meal commenced with great spirit, 
 by a simultaneous attack on the two steam- 
 ing joints ; the little landlord waiting obse- 
 quiously at the side of the Chairman, but 
 with a nervous alacrity offering his services 
 wherever they were required ; and the rest of 
 his establishment, excepting his pretty little 
 wife, who remained in the bar to serve out 
 the liquors, were actively employed in satis- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 129 
 
 fying the multitudinous demands that were 
 made upon them. Amid the clatter of the 
 horn-handled knives and forks, and the rat- 
 tling of the white plates, a medley of voices 
 came from all parts of the table, making as 
 rude a chorus as can well be conceived. 
 
 " Kow, you everlasting rascal, am I to be 
 kept waiting all night? I vow to gad I 
 never saw so slow an animal in all my born 
 days. Did you, Duke?" 
 
 " He 'th very thlow, thertainly, Marquith." 
 
 " Hark ye, fellow," continued the lisper in 
 a higher key, " be thure you bring me the 
 Pope'th eye and lotth of caper thauth. I'm 
 very fond of the Pope'th eye ^yiih lotth of 
 caper thauth," added he in a confidential 
 tone to his next neighbour. 
 
 *' I don't object to caper sauce, 'cause I 
 never heard nothino^ ao^ainst its beino^ ortho- 
 dox," exclaimed the representative of the 
 Bishop of London — a tallow-faced cockney, 
 in a very stiff neck- cloth. '' But no Pope's 
 eye for me : I hates everything Papistical." 
 
 g3 
 
130 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 '' A little more o' them mashed turnips, 
 Marquis, and a carrot or two; I don't care 
 about 'taters, they 're so devilish low." 
 
 " That Sir William 's the greediest hog I 
 ever came near," remarked the Marquis in 
 an under tone, as he was serving the vege- 
 tables, *' he wants to have all the turnips to 
 himself. Monstrous vulgar, isn't it, Duke?" 
 
 " I 'm dithguthted, Marquith ! " replied his 
 friend, too intent on paying his devotions to 
 his favourite tit-bit, that had been just 
 placed before him, to be more communi- 
 cative. 
 
 " Excellent bit of mutton, this," remarked 
 the Chainnan, actively cutting away, his 
 face moist with the steam and his own 
 exertions, " let me recommend you a slice." 
 
 " Thank you, I will take a little of the 
 gigot^ as we say in France," replied his young 
 acquaintance. 
 
 " I 'm just thinking this is as bonny a 
 joint as a hungr}^ man need partake of," 
 said the representative of the great Tory 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 131 
 
 party ; and he added, Avith a sly glance at 
 some of his friends, " the mutton 's a wee 
 bit too well flavoured to have been fattened 
 on a Whig pasture." 
 
 At this jest the servants of Lord BoHng- 
 broke and Lady Hamilton exchanged signi- 
 ficant glances; whilst Sir Wilham Wynd- 
 ham's footman burst into a horse-laugh. 
 
 ^luch in this way the meal proceeded to 
 its conclusion ; the master and his attendants 
 having anything but a sinecure in supplying 
 the wants and mshes of their insolent cus- 
 tomers. They darted backwards and for- 
 wards with inconceivable aoilitv, as each 
 sharp summons reached their ears : now for 
 more meat — more beer — more vegetables, 
 more bread — till, to their evident reUef, 
 there was no more of either to be had. 
 
 Oswald, who always had his eyes and ears 
 open, whilst describing to the travelled valet 
 of his master's son the characters of the dif- 
 ferent persons at the table with him, noticed 
 how frequently the leading members of the 
 
132 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 opposite party laid their powdered heads to- 
 gether over their plates, and seemed ab- 
 sorbed in communications of the deepest 
 interest. 
 
 " I suspect there 's something in the wind," 
 he observed to his fellow- servant, as the 
 cloth was being cleared, ''there 's a deal 
 more than ordinary in the cunning look of 
 that cursed Scotchman. That Frenchman, 
 too, 's a deep fellow, and looks uncommon 
 like a Jesuit ; and then there 's that smirking 
 thief of my Lady Archibald, and Wyndham's 
 vulgar scoundrel. I know by their grimaces 
 they are engaged in a plot against us. 
 Now, Fibbs, mind what I say. You presently 
 go and seat yourself at t'other end of the 
 table, as though you wanted to talk with old 
 Kickshaw respecting your visit to France. 
 Say all you can against us. Do you take? 
 — and if you can pick up anything, let me 
 know." 
 
 " I understand perfectly. Au r^evoir, as 
 we say in France," replied his companion; 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 13 
 
 o 
 
 and the next nninute he was seated by the 
 side of the Frenchman, who, having been 
 cordially hailed in his own tongue, made 
 way for him with pleased alacrity. Nor was 
 Mr. Fibbs ill-received by the party he now 
 joined ; this perhaps he owed partly to his 
 being a new comer, partly to the handsome 
 manner in which he had offered to pay his 
 footing. 
 
 The legs of mutton and trimmings having 
 been disposed of, preparations were now 
 made for the after-meal enjoyments, which 
 consisted of drinking and smoking. Every 
 member was provided with a pipe and a 
 sufficiency of tobacco, and he proceeded to 
 call for whatever liquor he preferred, or 
 could afford to pay for. 
 
 The landlord and his assistants were again 
 obliged to exhibit an unnatural degree of 
 vigilance in endeavouring to attend to every 
 body at once. The variety of the different 
 orders they received, was much more amus- 
 ing than the sharp and imperative tones in 
 
134 STRAAVBERRY HILL. 
 
 which they were given. After the new Mem- 
 ber's bowl of punch had disappeared, the 
 more aristocratic portion of the Club called 
 for wine — many demanded gin-and-water — 
 others called for usquebaugh; and the rest 
 patronized such indescribable mixtures as 
 flip, dog's-nose, lamb's- wool, huff- cap, three- 
 threads, and purl. 
 
 " Xow, you everlasting rascal, attend to 
 me," cried his wife's admirer to the trembling 
 little publican — " a bottle of Madeira. Duke, 
 will you join ? " 
 
 " Of coorth, Marquith." 
 
 " Then be sure it is the best in your 
 cellar. We don't mind the expense — Do we, 
 Duke?" 
 
 " D the expenth, Marquith." 
 
 " Coijjo de Bacco ! as we say in Italy," 
 cried the new Member, " My friend Monsieur 
 Quelquechose and myself will drink to each 
 other's better acquaintance in a bottle of 
 claret." 
 
 " Oui^ man ami, I shall be mosh glad." 
 
STRAWBERRY HUX. 135 
 
 " TVTiat 'bacco was that you were speaking 
 of ? " inquired the untravelled representative 
 of Sir William Wyndham. 
 
 " Hignorant liass !" exclaimed the Bishop 
 of London in an under tone, expressive of 
 immense contempt. 
 
 "" Now, gentlemen! " cried the Chairman, 
 when he had ascertained that all the mem- 
 bers had been provided with what they re- 
 quired, " seeing as how your pipes are 
 lighted and your glasses filled, I must beg 
 to propose our usual toast — High wages and 
 easy places ! " 
 
 This toast was drunk with the most lively 
 demonstrations of applause. It was easy to 
 see that every one approved of it. 
 
 " And now, gentlemen," added the Vice 
 from the other end of the table, " the toast 
 ye have just drunk is verra proper and ne- 
 cessary for us all to uphold. I '11 no say a 
 word against it. But I 've got a bit of a 
 sentiment whilk I 'm certain sure ye '11 think 
 quite as gude. I '11 e'en declare it at once. 
 
136 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ^ May gude masters, who look after notliing, 
 find gude servants, willing to put their 
 hands to anything.' " 
 
 The sentiment, with its occult meaning, 
 it is scarcely necessary to say, was quite as 
 well received as the toast. 
 
 A few more toasts and sentiments of a 
 similar description followed, and then, as 
 was usual, the conversation began gradually 
 to assume a political character. The shrewd 
 old servitor of Sir Robert Walpole iname- 
 diately took a leading part in it, and was of 
 course opposed by the crafty-looking attend- 
 ant on Mr. Pulteney. The chief supporters 
 of each occasionally took a share in the argu- 
 ment ; but, with the exception of a few inter- 
 ruptions, it appeared to be a trial of strength 
 between the two rivals at the supper table. 
 
 In the course of the argument, the Wal- 
 pole party were rather roughly handled by 
 the liveried orator of the Pulteneys ; and in 
 return the Pulteney party got quite as 
 sharply dealt with by the liveried orator of 
 
STliAWBEKRY HILL. 137 
 
 the Minister. The Scotchman was most 
 severe on the foreign policy of Ministers, 
 abused their proceedings respecting Poland, 
 denounced their policy in Italy, and was 
 particularly indignant on the subject of the 
 Pragmatic Sanction. 
 
 The worthy Oswald was not abashed by 
 so many powerful exceptions, and defended 
 the Government measures with prodigious 
 spirit — identifying himself with the great 
 Minister in the most amusing manner, by 
 always using the pronoun ive in allusion to 
 the acts of the Government — which by the 
 way was also the practice of his opponent, 
 when mentioning the acts of the Opposition. 
 
 " In short," said the representative of the 
 Tory leader, after a long and severe philippic, 
 '•'' it 's as plain as the nose on your face, that 
 your folly and misgovernment are sending 
 the country to the devil." 
 
 " That 's the fact," added his neighbour, 
 the liveried Sir William Wyndham. " The 
 Whigs have done nothing but mischief 
 
138 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 We are the only people capable of setting 
 thinfi^s to rio^hts." 
 
 " I have my doubts on that head," replied 
 the Chairman, "' however, I 'm for Pro- 
 testant ascendancy and the union of Church 
 and State." 
 
 " We must be sure to support the 
 Church," cried, with a hearty execration, 
 the stiff-necked Bishop of London. " I 
 halways stands by my own border." 
 
 " A prodigious good resolution," observed 
 the Marquis. " We, as belongs to the State, 
 ought to support the State : what do you say, 
 Duke?" 
 
 "Dethidedly, Marquith," replied his friend, 
 momentarily taking his pipe from liis mouth. 
 
 " I don't despair," rejoined Mr. Pulteney's 
 servant. "If I 'm not verra much mis- 
 taken, there '11 be a wonderful change in 
 things long before certain persons are pre- 
 pared for it. If these worthless AYhigs 
 don't get out of our way, we shall be under 
 the necessity of kicking them out." 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 139 
 
 The dependents of Lord Bolingbroke and 
 Lady Archibald Hamilton again exchanged 
 very significant glances. 
 
 " We are not at all afraid of that," re- 
 plied Mr. OsTvald, vrith a vast expression of 
 cool contempt; ''we despise the wretched 
 tools of a paltiy faction too much to fear 
 them." 
 
 "Ye 're too gude, by half," angrily re- 
 torted Mr. MToxiej "but I 'm thinking its 
 just better to be tools than rogues." 
 
 "Rogues!" shouted the Chairman an- 
 grily, rising from his seat, "is that in- 
 tended for this end of the table?" 
 
 " Rogues!" echoed the Marquis's state 
 footman with becoming' diofnity, " I vow 
 to gad we '11 not stand that; will we, 
 Duke?" 
 
 " Thertainly not, Marquith!" replied his 
 friend, with the same feeling of virtuous in- 
 dignation very strongly impressed in his 
 countenance, " it 'th motht inthulting. He 
 ought to be made to know, perthonth of 
 
140 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 dithtincthon mutht not be inthulted with 
 impunity." 
 
 ''Rogues!" repeated Oswald, his broad 
 face in a blaze of anger, " I 'd have you to 
 know who you 're a-speaking to." 
 
 " He 's a haggrawating hinfidel, not worth 
 our notice," observed the prelate in livery, 
 lookinor in the direction of the offender as 
 if he had just swallowed something ex- 
 tremely disagreeable. 
 
 The Chairman was not in a humour to 
 put up with such an affront. His good- 
 natured physiognomy was turned to fiery 
 indignation at hearing a phrase, which, 
 though addressed to him, he knew to be 
 applied to his master; and he retorted in 
 language equally offensive. His rival re- 
 plied in words still more objectionable, and 
 the whole room then began to resound with 
 the war of words. The Tories abused the 
 Whigs like pickpockets, and the Whigs 
 retorted on the Tories with a Billingsgate 
 equally comprehensive. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 141 
 
 The political partizans seemed every mo- 
 ment getting more and more excited — exe- 
 crations and threats were exchanged, like 
 long shots in a fight at sea. Every man 
 at last jumped to his feet — a pitched battle 
 seemed inevitable, when suddenly the waiter 
 rushed into the room, bawling with the 
 full force of his lungs, and a prodigious as- 
 pirate on the second and last word, that " the 
 Opera was over." 
 
 In an instant all tried to seize their hats 
 and hasten to the carria^fes waitinc^ in the 
 Haymarket, or to the homes of their mas- 
 ters — in whichever quarter their services 
 Avere likely to be required — with a degree 
 of anxiety that made them quite oblivious 
 of their recent dispute. 
 
142 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 HORACE WALPOLE AND HIS VALET. 
 
 The valet of a gentleman of fortune, a 
 hundred years ago, was in many respects a 
 different kind of animal to the fashionable 
 valet of the present day. He was a most 
 useful personage — he could do every thing — 
 and, what was of equal importance, he could 
 say every thing, required of him. He was 
 possessed of an inexhaustible fund of good 
 humour — an unfailing impudence — a hajipy 
 invention : was not less full of vanity than 
 
STRAWBERKY HILL. 143 
 
 of mendacity — was devoted to his master — 
 was employed as the ambassador in his 
 amours — the counsel in his difficulties — and 
 the prime minister in all his little matters 
 of finance. He was also the most amusing 
 of gossips; for it appeared to be a part of 
 his duties to get acquainted ^ith every 
 thing and every body, for the express pur- 
 pose, as it seemed, of entertaining his em- 
 ployer whilst engaged in the tedious ar- 
 rangements of the toilet. 
 
 The stage has pretty frequently mtro- 
 duced us to indi\'iduals of this genus do- 
 mestic ; but we are more famihar ^dth 
 foreign than with native specimens. Never- 
 theless, the English valet, as he flourished 
 about the middle of the last century, was 
 a character worthy the acquamtance of the 
 readers of the present; therefore, we shall 
 make no apolog}^ for preserving a full- 
 length of him in these pages in the person 
 of ^Ir. Fibbs, the confidential and favourite 
 attendant on our hero. 
 
144 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 Fibbs and his master, though both in their 
 youth, might call themselves old acquaint- 
 ances ; they had first become known to each 
 otlier at Eton. The former was the grandson 
 of the dame in whose house young Walpole 
 lived ; and his good looks, general clever- 
 ness, and cheerful disposition made him a 
 favourite with many of the elder youths, 
 who often employed him in confidential 
 embassies, which the boys of the school 
 could not undertake. 
 
 Walpole tried his fidelity more than once, 
 and the result was so satisfactory to each 
 that it created a mutual regard. AATien the 
 ^linister's son went to Cambridge, he con- 
 trived to get his humble acquaintance em- 
 ployment at his College, where his educa- 
 tion proceeded rapidly ; and when he went 
 abroad, he took Fibbs with him as his per- 
 sonal servant. During his travels, the lat- 
 ter contrived to finish his education as a 
 valet quite as successfully as his master 
 completed that of a gentleman. 
 
STRAAYBERRY HILL. 145 
 
 It must be allowed that the young man 
 followed the usual practice of favourite ser- 
 vants, by taking a few liberties with his 
 master; but then he never failed to treat 
 hmi with the utmost respect before a third 
 party. Xo indulgence ever induced the 
 grandson of Dame Fibbs to behave to his 
 master with an undue degree of familiarity. 
 And there was another curious feature in 
 the odd amalgamation of virtues and vices 
 that made up his character. If it appeared 
 necessary, he would beg for him, fight for 
 him, lie for him, or steal for him, to any 
 extent ; but to his master he had no decep- 
 tion, and was a miracle of servile honesty. 
 
 Fibbs had not the objections his mas- 
 ter entertained to seeking new quarters. 
 He might have felt some little regret at 
 leaving the Minister's splendid edifice in 
 Downing Street ; but when he found the 
 new house so spacious — observed it to be 
 so handsomely furnished — and learned that 
 it was to be his young master's residence, 
 
 VOL. I. H 
 
14G STEAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 he was perfectly reconciled to the change. 
 The honours of his master he regarded 
 as in some part his own; and he rose 
 in his own estimation to a marvellous 
 height, when he reflected that he held the 
 honourable and responsible office of valet 
 to a Member of Parliament, having a fine 
 house in Arlinsfton Street, and who was, 
 moreover, the son of the Prime Minister. 
 
 He drew a remarkably logical deduction 
 — possibly the result of his Cambridge 
 education — that, supposing Sir Robert Wal- 
 pole to be the greatest great man in England, 
 it followed that, in the eye of the world, 
 his master was the greatest great man's son 
 in England ; ergo^ it could not be othermse 
 than that an individual so confidentially 
 employed by the latter as himself, should be 
 entitled to the distinction of being the 
 greatest valet of the greatest great man's 
 son in the same great empire. 
 
 It is impossible to imagine a young man 
 in his position better satisfied with it than 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 147 
 
 was the Eton Dame's grandson ; and when 
 he entered the dressing room of his master, 
 the mornino; after his introduction to " The 
 Upper Servants' Supper Club," (as faithfully 
 related in our last chapter), in a light sleeved 
 vest, bearing on his arm his master's coat 
 carefuUy brushed and folded, a silver mug 
 of hot water in his hand, a lather box, case 
 of razors, strop, and clean napkin, his lively 
 countenance expressed as much secret satis- 
 faction as it was possible to have concen- 
 trated in so moderate a compass. 
 
 In this respect he was a striking contrast 
 to his master, who, as he sat in his dressing 
 gown, evidently waiting his servant's ap- 
 proach, looked as discontented and uncom- 
 fortable as a young gentleman of more than 
 ordinary sensibility could be, who wanted 
 sympathy in the one object on which he had 
 placed all his affection, and — a matter equally 
 important in his personal appearance — 
 wanted shaving. 
 
 Yery few valets, now-a-days, condescend 
 
 h2 
 
148 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 to exercise the accomplishments of a barber ; 
 perhaps that is the reason why they have 
 so completely lost their identity with the 
 Leporellos, Figaros, and other popular re- 
 presentatives of their peculiar class. In 
 these enlightened days gentlemen keep to 
 themselves the enjoyment of the razor. 
 
 It may be said that they have not much 
 to do ; for what with the encroachments of 
 whiskers, beard, mustachios, and imperial, 
 the lathering and scraping have been re- 
 duced to a very moderate limit. But in 
 the barefaced days of George II. the natural 
 domain of shaving spread over the entire 
 facial surface, wherever a bristle could be 
 cultivated; and not unfrequently included 
 the whole of the head. Xow the same crop 
 is carefuUy planted out, after continued top- 
 dressings of those powerful guanos. Macassar 
 Oil and Bear's Grease : — then, the whole was 
 kept in stubble. 
 
 Shaving, therefore, was an operation de- 
 manding no slight degree of manual dex- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. , 149 
 
 terity, and took up a great deal of time. 
 This period, which would othermse have 
 been insufferably tedious, the operator con- 
 trived should pass by as pleasantly as pos- 
 sible, by calling in aid the resources of 
 gossip, scandal, and entertaining anecdotes, 
 which were as much at the valet's disposal 
 as his soap-suds. 
 
 " A fine morning this, your Honour," ex- 
 claimed Fibbs, as he proceeded to place a nap- 
 kin round his master's throat, "prodigious 
 fine morning. Ahnost as fine as we had at 
 Rome. hella Italia ! as we say in Italy. 
 That is the country for fine weather. For 
 my part, I cannot imagine why everybody 
 does not desire to live there. ^Nevertheless, 
 I am well aware that there are prejudices. 
 The Laplander prefers his cheerless snows 
 to the sunniest chmes. De gustibus non est 
 disputandujUj as we said at Eton. 
 
 " I must acknowledge I'm all for sun- 
 shine," he continued, as he briskly manu- 
 factured the lather, " it puts a man in good 
 
150 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 spirits, your Honour. I don't think there 
 would be any suicides, if the sun could be 
 made to shine all the year round. And 
 there would be a great deal more happiness 
 in the world, depend on 't. The men would 
 be too comfortable to think of quarrelling 
 with each other. I say nothing of the wo- 
 men, for your Honour knows — ' the greater 
 includes the less,* as we said at Cambridge. 
 "" It 's a thousand pities, every country 
 hasn't a sun of its own," he added, as he 
 half smothered his young master's nose, 
 mouth, and ears under an accumulation of 
 soap-suds, briskly distributing it equally over 
 the face with the brush, with the nonchalance 
 of an artist laying his colours on the canvass ; 
 '* it would be an arran element, a o^reat deal 
 more satisfactory, your Honour, depend on 't, 
 and make vast changes over the whole civi- 
 lized orlobe. The foo^o-iest Hollander would 
 become as sprightly as a Gascon, and the 
 miserablest native of Greenland would out- 
 laugh the merriest Savoyard that ever danced 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 151 
 
 to a cracked flageolet. Fiat lux, as we said 
 at Eton, and then nobody need have the 
 vapours. We should see the world in its 
 brightest aspect; and its unproved appear- 
 ance would vastly improve our spirits." 
 
 Possibly his young master might have 
 made some observations on this original 
 conception of his servant for making all 
 mankind happy, but he knew his mouth to 
 be too well fortified with a breast- work of 
 lather, to risk opening his lips. And now 
 the bright razor flashed before his eyes, Avith 
 a preliminary strop on the operator's pahn; 
 and he was one of those mse men who would 
 refrain from entering into an argument vnih 
 an opponent flourishing a deadly weapon 
 within an inch of his throat. 
 
 " I 'm sorry to see your Honour so dull," 
 continued his volatile attendant, as he pro- 
 ceeded to remove the lather he had just 
 laid on so artistically; "I remember when 
 we were at Rome, you were regarded as the 
 most cheerful Enf]:lishman in the dominions 
 
152 STRAWBEERY HILL. 
 
 of his Holiness. But then there was a lady 
 in the case, and Amor vincit omnia, as we 
 said at Eton. She was very beautiful, and 
 very — 
 
 " By your leave, I must have your Ho- 
 nour's nose a little higher," suddenly ob- 
 served the operator, as he elevated that 
 useful member with his finger and thmnb, so 
 as to aUow the upper lip the full benefit of the 
 sharp blade passing so dexterously over it. 
 " Yes, I must acknowledge she was what I 
 call a great beauty, your Honour. La belle 
 des belles, as we say in France. But I never 
 could make out exactly, your Honour, what 
 parted you. I remember weU enough her say- 
 ing to me once, when I took a billet from you 
 to the Palazza What-d'ye-caU'em, in which 
 she lived, ' Signor Fibbs,' says she, ' I have a 
 great regard for your ]\Iaster.' ' He 's dying 
 for you, my Lady,' says I, quite plump ; for 
 I invariably look on such small acknowledg- 
 ments on the part of her sex as a petitio prin- 
 cipii, as we said at Cambridge, and allow the 
 
STEAWBERRY HILL. 153 
 
 poor creature the full benefit of it. t Signor 
 Fibbs/ says she — 
 
 '' Your Honour's chin a little lower — that 's 
 it,'' said the gossip, interrupting his reminis- 
 cences for the purpose of securing a proper 
 completion of his task. " ' Signor Fibbs,' says 
 she, ' tell your master, from me, that I am 
 perfectly sensible of his delicacy' — those 
 were the very words, your Honour — ' per- 
 fectly sensible of his delicacy, but that an 
 impassable gulf yawns between us, and 
 therefore it is impossible that we can be 
 anything to each other.' 
 
 " I was a little transmogrified at this, your 
 Honour, you may be sure, knowing every 
 thing respecting you both so well as I did ; 
 but then I was quite as well aware that woman 
 is an animal sui generis^ as we said at Cam- 
 bridge, and therefore pretended to take what 
 I had heard as a matter of course. I won't 
 say I didn't call to mind at the time a certain 
 rosy-cheeked little girl at Frogmore, who 
 cried her apron -syringing wet when your Ho- 
 
 H 3 
 
154 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 nour left Eton ; and yet, confound the jade, 
 a month afterwards married the miller's club- 
 footed son at Datchet. Homme propose et 
 Dieu dispose, as we say in France : but 
 when the man doii't propose, 'tis the girl 
 disposes of herself; and, as if she fancied 
 that the devil took the hindmost of her sex 
 in the race for matrimony, it is generally 
 in the most hasty and reckless manner 
 possible." 
 
 " I think, Mr. Fibbs, you are giving that 
 restless tongue of yours a great deal too 
 much license," observed his master, as soon 
 as he found he might venture to remon- 
 strate — which opportunity he had been 
 rather impatiently waiting for for some 
 minutes — " how often am I to tell you 
 never to allude to what transpired at 
 Rome! . ." Here the young Member gave 
 a profound sigh. 
 
 " No offence, your Honour," replied his at- 
 tendant, deprecatingly — who was perfectly 
 aware there was a mystery in this attachment 
 
STRAA^^ERRY HILL. 155 
 
 of his young master, and would have given 
 half his wages to find it out; "sorry I 
 alluded to the subject, your Honour; but 
 cannot help being concerned that the affair 
 should have ended so unsatisfactorily. But, 
 Che sara sara^ as we said in Italy. 
 
 "What would you please to wear?" he 
 added, having completed his operations on 
 his young master's head and face. " Which 
 suit would your Honour like to appear in 
 to-day?" 
 
 The necessary directions were given, and 
 the process of dressing began. Like most 
 young men of family of his day, Horace 
 Walpole paid particular attention to his 
 person, and his apparel was always of 
 the most fashionable make. His valet se- 
 conded his wishes with great attention 
 and assiduity, but it seemed a natural ai'- 
 rangement of the machine, for the tongue 
 to keep pace mth the movement of the 
 hands. He perceived his young master to 
 be in rather low spirits, and sought to 
 
156 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 amuse him by a relation of all he had seen 
 and heard the previous night. The ridicu- 
 lous features of the " The Upper Servants' 
 Supper Club" lost nothing in such hands; 
 and the listener's thoughtful rather than 
 sorrowful countenance brightened more than 
 once, as he felt the humour of the scene. 
 His smile, however, presently changed to 
 an expression of the most intense interest, 
 as the narrator began to unfold the suspi- 
 cions that had been entertained by the 
 sagacious chairman, of there being some 
 plot hatching amongst the Pulteney party. 
 
 " According to orders," continued the 
 communicative valet, '^ I seated myself be- 
 tween a couple of as sly foxes as ever 
 robbed henroost — arcades ambo, as we said 
 at Eton. I put forth all my powers of pleas- 
 ing, together with certain accomplishments 
 less worthy of credit, which though have 
 often done good service. I considered, that 
 to argue from false premises to just conclu- 
 sions, and to employ the suppressio veri^ as 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 157 
 
 we said at Cambridge, was excusable with 
 such opponents." 
 
 " Did you hear anything to satisfy you 
 that my father had aught to fear from the 
 intrigues of his enemies?" inquired the 
 Minister's son, with considerable earnest- 
 ness. 
 
 " I heard nothing but hints," replied his 
 attendant; ''but they were pregnant with 
 meaning: and I could see from the good 
 understanding that existed between the 
 Scotchman and his French friend, and the 
 servants of Sir William Wyndham and Lady 
 Archibald Hamilton, that they were aware 
 of something that was vastly agreeable to 
 themselves and their employers, and must 
 be equally to the prejudice of Sir Robert 
 and his friends." 
 
 " I doubt it was worth troubling your- 
 self about," said his young master, as if 
 disappointed at learning so little. "It is 
 probable enough such persons would pre- 
 tend to know what it was impossible 
 
158 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 would come under their observation. If 
 Lady Archibald did enter into a plot "with 
 my Lord Bolingbroke and the Pulteney 
 party, it is monstrous absurd to imagine 
 they would let their servants into their 
 confidence, when secrecy was of the first 
 importance to them." 
 
 ^' That is all very true, your Honour," ob- 
 served the other. " But be assured, that as 
 long as servants have ears, and doors have 
 key-holes, a secret kno^wn to the master of 
 the house is sure very soon to travel to his 
 domestics. Experientia docet, as we said 
 at Eton." 
 
 " Surely you don't mean to say you have 
 listened at key-holes!" exclaimed his young 
 master. 
 
 " Not to learn your Honour's secrets, 
 certainly," replied his companion; "but to 
 learn those of others in which you were 
 interested. Every animal has some pecu- 
 liar faculty on which it relies on an emer- 
 gency. The feeble hare finds safety in her 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 159 
 
 smftness of foot — the courageous cock de- 
 fends himself mth his spurs — the gentle 
 partridge, when put in peril by the sports- 
 man, trusts to her speed of wing — and the 
 harmless duck avoids her foes by her skill 
 in diving : the domestic servant, in his 
 emergency, trusts to his ears; and when- 
 ever there is a tolerable conductor of sound, 
 either in the way of thin partitions, opened 
 windows, or key -holed doors, your Honour 
 may be sure he will quickly find the use of it. 
 
 '' I don't mean altogether to defend the 
 practice, your Honour," he continued, "but it 
 is natural we should desire to live and learn, 
 and we must learn according to the means 
 for acquiring information at our disposal. 
 A key-hole is an indirect channel of commu- 
 nication, certainly, your Honour, and per- 
 haps should be regarded as an unlawful one : 
 but Necessitas non habet leges^ as we said at 
 Cambridge." 
 
 " You have learnt no little sophistry 
 amongst the knowledge you acquired at 
 
160 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 Cambridge," observed Horace Walpole, in 
 some degree amused at his companion's jus- 
 tification of an unwarrantable habit. The 
 smile, however, was but transient : the re- 
 ference that had so recently been made in 
 his presence to an attachment he had en- 
 tered into nearly twelve months before, 
 had excited many asociations of more than 
 ordinary interest. He sighed again — a 
 pretty sure sign that his feelings had been 
 touched. 
 
 " Make your mind easy, your Honour, 
 as regards this apparent plot amongst your 
 respected father's enemies," observed his 
 valet, believing his young master's solicitude 
 had been excited in that direction. " I 
 verily believe I should have got to the bot- 
 tom of it last night, if it had not been for 
 the skirmish that so suddenly sprang up 
 at the table. But if there 's a secret, de- 
 pend on it I '11 know the rights of it before 
 twenty-four hours are over my head; and 
 as I accepted the cordial invitations to visit 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 161 
 
 them, given by my liveried friends, at Mr. 
 Pulteney's — Sir William Wyndham's — my 
 Lady Archibald Hamilton's — and my Lord 
 Bolingbroke's, depend on it, your Honour, 
 if there is anything to be discovered, I am 
 in the ris-ht road to find it out. Restez tran- 
 quille, as we say in France." 
 
 By this time the young Member for Cal- 
 lington had completed his toilet. His ap- 
 pearance showed at a glance the attention 
 that had been bestowed upon it ; and when 
 he took his last scrutiny in the glass, he felt 
 perfectly satisfied that everything, from the 
 set of his wig to the fold of his shoe-tie, was 
 perfectly unexceptionable. He gave some 
 order to his attendant of an unimportant 
 character, and some directions respecting 
 \isitors. But he spoke listlessly, as if his 
 attention was in another direction. At last, 
 as he was about to leave the room, he sud- 
 denly turned to his companion, and said, 
 "By the bye, Fibbs, should you by any 
 chance hear, in the course of your peregri- 
 
162 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 nations, any news of importance, menacing 
 Sir Robert — anything, I mean, that can be 
 relied on — I trust you will lose no time in 
 communicating with me. No matter where 
 1 am, or how I am engaged, I shall expect 
 you to find your way to me, and without 
 allowing any unnecessary time to elapse, to 
 put me in possession of whatever you may 
 have ascertained." 
 
 " And now," said the Minister's younger 
 son to himself, after he had heard out his 
 servant's assurances of doing whatever he 
 desired, and was making his way to enter the 
 chair that was waiting for him in the hall, 
 " now for Lady Archibald. If she is the wo- 
 man I have every reason to believe her to be, 
 I do not despair of being able to make her 
 useful. Should there be aught to fear in these 
 rumours of coalition against Sir Robert, I most 
 earnestly hope I may be enabled to see the 
 danger. I hope still more earnestly I 
 may have the good fortune to guard him 
 from it. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 163 
 
 " Ah, x\.rabella ! " he exclaimed witli more 
 fervour, '^ deeply as my spirit has been 
 moved by thy exquisite beauty, I feel I 
 could renounce thee, and all thy admirable 
 gifts, to gain the proud distinction of being 
 of service to so noble a parent." 
 
164 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ARABELLA FALKLAND. 
 
 We think it now high time to introduce 
 one of the dramatis jpersonce of this story, of 
 whose existence, although we may have 
 given some slight indications, we have said 
 much too little to satisfy even the most gentle 
 of readers. A tale without a heroine stands 
 much in the same position as a conserva- 
 tory without a flower; and although these 
 volumes assume a more historical character 
 than can be said to belong to the mere novel, 
 
STRAWBERRY UILL. 165 
 
 we are conscious that we shall be quite as 
 much expected to fulfil the demands of fic- 
 tion, as if we had as little to do T\ith truth 
 as that stupendous romancer M. Thiers. 
 
 There could only be one reason for our 
 deferring so long the introduction of the 
 young lady who is to play the important role 
 in this drama of the last century — and this 
 reason is, the want of any necessity for her 
 appearance. Solomon said that there was a 
 time for everything — and we are perfectly 
 convinced he was riirht. There is a time 
 for prize oxen and a time for white-bait — a 
 time for the Horticultural Gardens, and a 
 time for the ballet at the Opera House — a 
 time for putrid bones, and a time for Perigord 
 pies — a time for Archaeological gossip, and a 
 time for Tractarian foolery — a time for Stars 
 and Garters, and a time for stripes and rags 
 — in short, a time for God, and a time for 
 the de^il. — There must be, of course, a time 
 for our heroine. 
 
 We have not delayed her entrance upon 
 
166 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 the scene from a misgiving of her being able 
 to play her part with effect. We beg to 
 state that there is no room for doubt in such 
 a case. The one pure and perfect chrysolite 
 mentioned by the poet was not more admir- 
 able than was the nature of Arabella 
 Falkland. To a tall commanding figure — a 
 figure combining the majesty of a Juno with 
 the spiritual grace of the more youthful 
 Psyche — there were added features impressed 
 vrith. a spirit of such exquisite loveliness, 
 that it seemed to the love- sick youth who 
 ventured within the influence of her attrac- 
 tions, an impossibility to gaze into those soft, 
 subduing eyes, mthout his whole being be- 
 comimx thrilled with a new sense — a sense 
 of the beautiful, so ecstatic, so profound, 
 that it became from that time forth an epoch 
 in his existence — a sort of new style in his 
 calendar, by which he might date his 
 sensations. 
 
 But these charms were physical only ; for 
 thoufj-h her fine intellisrence made itself visible 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 167 
 
 in her beauty as in a miiTor, the graces of 
 her person were but the natural dower 
 granted to the daughters of Eve in fee simple 
 to the end of time, for their maintenance, 
 security and honour. Her mind was a Pan- 
 dora's box, full, not of evil gifts, but of good, 
 with nobleness at the top, and wisdom at the 
 bottom, modesty in a quiet comer, and 
 virtue everywhere. 
 
 At the period when she first made the 
 acquaintance of Horace Walpole, she was 
 living in Kome, with her father, A'^iscount 
 Falkland, a nobleman of ancient family and 
 of the Catholic faith, and an expatriated 
 Jacobite, kno^\Ti to be in the service of the 
 Pretender. She was young — just entering 
 upon the quick sensibilities and proud 
 resolves of womanhood — yet bearing upon 
 her unsullied heart all those pure and holy 
 feelings which, from childhood to adolescence, 
 had grown and flourished around her gene- 
 rous nature, like the rich wild flowers of 
 some ever-sunny clime upon a virgin soil. 
 
168 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 Lord Falkland was in heart and soul a 
 patrician — a man of somewhat haughty 
 spirit — infinitely proud of his unsullied 
 blood, yet equally proud of his incomparable 
 daughter. His change of fortune, conse- 
 quent upon his adherence to the Stuarts in 
 their misfortunes, had only made him more 
 proud, more gloomy, more an ascetic, than 
 he had been when possessed of the extensive 
 revenues of Falkland Court. There were 
 tAVO or three powerful impulses at work in 
 that busy brain, which swayed and directed 
 all its energies. First came his love for his 
 daughter — the last of an illustrious line, who 
 seemed to inherit, mth all the beauty for 
 Avhich so many of her female ancestors had 
 been famous — as witness the immortal labours 
 of Holbein, Vandyke, Lely, and Kneller — all 
 the worth and talent which had distinguished 
 the most famous of those churchmen, gene- 
 rals, and statesmen, whose effigies, from the 
 same eminent hands, also assisted in adorn- 
 ing the great picture-gallery in their aban- 
 doned home. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 1G9 
 
 Next to his passionate love for the only 
 being beside himself who bore his name, was 
 his affection for his sovereign. Loyalty had 
 been a characteristic of his house for many 
 generations. It had dyed many a well con- 
 tested field with crimson in the troublous 
 times of the First Charles — it was as ready 
 to yield the same evidence of its sincerity in 
 the equally hapless time of his unfortunate 
 descendants. The son of James II. knew 
 his value, regarded him with equal admira- 
 tion and esteem, and gave him a post in his 
 little court, which, though barren of pecuni- 
 ary advantage, the loyal exile would not 
 have exchanged for the greatest distinction 
 in the most gorgeous court in Christendom. 
 
 The third and last of these powerful in- 
 fluences was his reverence for his religion. 
 The Catholic Church had fallen somewhat 
 from its greatness, but in his eyes it was the 
 greatest as well as the holiest of holy insti- 
 tutions : many had abandoned its faith whom 
 it had protected, honored, and enriched, but 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
170 STKAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 the Falklands were not of the number ; and 
 the last male of that steadfast race paid such 
 homage to its spirit, as though he sought to 
 make amends, by the ardour of his con- 
 sistency, for the apostacy of those who had 
 resigned its blessings. 
 
 He had married late in life, a few years 
 subsequently to his expatriation from his 
 father-land, a daughter of a poor but exalted 
 Roman family. This connection with a 
 princely house might have added to his dig- 
 nity, but it was very far from increasing his 
 resources. However, it so happened that 
 the Princess unfortunately did not long 
 draw upon them — she died in giving birth 
 to a dau;i:hter ; and for a long: time her hus- 
 band appeared to have withdrawn himself 
 from the world, to the sole enjoyment of the 
 society of his Confessor, the Padre Michaeli, 
 and his religious meditations. 
 
 The infant Arabella, christened after Lord 
 Falkland's adored mother, was placed under 
 the care of a kinswoman, the Lady Abbess 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 171 
 
 of a celebrated religious house in the neiirh- 
 bourhood of Rome ; and the Signora Falkland 
 happening to be a most intellectual as well as 
 a truly noble Englishwoman, the child re- 
 ceived so admirable an education, and her 
 finely gifted mind was so skilfully directed 
 to whatever could most elevate and ennoble 
 it, that when the father received back his 
 daughter, it appeared to his confnsed senses 
 as though he had been in a heav}^ dream, 
 from which he was awakened by a holy 
 messenger, come to guide him to a world 
 of glorious action and wondrous intelligence. 
 Arabella Falkland, thouGfh Italian born, 
 was Enghsh bred : her sympathies were 
 with her father's, rather than with her mo- 
 ther's home : her thoughts were more with 
 Falkland Court than with the YiUaCastrucci. 
 Yet, grafted on English purity, Italian en- 
 thusiasm gave her a romantic temperament 
 that existed only for what was most beautiful 
 in nature, and most admirable in art. The 
 
 study of the master-pieces of Italian poetry — 
 
 I 2 
 
172 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 the lofty mysteries of Dante, the stirring 
 thoughts of Tasso, and the eloquent feelings 
 of Petrarch, had been joined with as intimate 
 a knowledge of the loftiest examples of 
 English genius in the passionate ecstacies of 
 Shakspeare, and the holy aspirations of 
 .Milton. She was a being that seemed 
 created to excite a deathless passion — till the 
 beauty of her form and features was observed 
 in the same ineffable brightness to clothe 
 her thoughts ; and then it was seen that she 
 was as much the minister of Love as its idol 
 — as completely the poet of Beauty as its 
 object. 
 
 It was at this interesting period she first 
 accidentally encountered, whilst exploring 
 one of the classic ruins of her native city, a 
 young Englishman, who came recommended 
 to her favourable consideration by an act of 
 gallantry, which at some risk to his life pre- 
 served her own. To her an Englishman 
 was always an object of interest; but when 
 on a second interview she discovered that 
 
STEAWBERRY HILL. 173 
 
 her new acquaintance possessed the most 
 refined taste, an accomj)lished mind, and the 
 most ready appreciation of all those gifts and 
 qualities for which she felt such passionate 
 admiration, an invisible link of communica- 
 tion arose between them, that every day's 
 additional knowledge of each other's worth 
 lengthened, "s\idened, and strengthened, till 
 it became a bridge strong enough to bear the 
 rapidly increasing traffic of two youthful 
 hearts, overflowing with love for each other. 
 The young Englishman, as soon as he as- 
 certained who the Italian beauty was who had 
 so ra\'ished his senses, thought it wisest to 
 conceal his family name ; apprehensive that 
 any information on this point would at once 
 and for ever put an end to the exquisite 
 happiness he was then enjoying. But Ara- 
 bella Falkland having learned from him his 
 Cliristian name, required no further know- 
 ledge. Her father was absent from Eome 
 on a pohtical mission, during the first fort- 
 night of this acquaintance, and by the time 
 
174 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 he returned, the feehngs of the lovers were 
 too much committed to be easily disen- 
 tan!2:led. 
 
 Lord Falkland, as has been said, was a 
 proud man, and had the proudest views for 
 his dauo'hter — he was also a man of irresis- 
 tible prejudices ; and when he discovered that 
 the son of a man he held in such absolute 
 abhorrence as Sir Robert Walpole — the most 
 dreaded enemy of the Jacobites — the most 
 able supporter of the Hanoverian usurper — 
 had dared to form an attachment with the 
 daughter of a Falkland, it was impossible to 
 imao^ine the extent of his indio:nation. 
 
 Arabella had been taught to hate the 
 name of Walpole, as she had been taught to 
 worship the cause which that name had so 
 often tumbled to the dust; and mth her 
 natural enthusiasm she had learned to regard 
 it with very considerable abhorrence. Yet, 
 as soon as she ascertained that her lover was a 
 Walpole, the name unaccountably lost a good 
 deal of its detestable qualities. Nevertheless 
 
STKAWBERRY HILL. 175 
 
 she immediately became weU aware that 
 there was an impassable gulf between them. 
 It was impossible for one brought up as she 
 had been, to abandon the principles which 
 had made the Falklands exiles in a forei^rn 
 land. Attachment to the fallen house of 
 Stuart formed the first article in her 
 creed. 
 
 The enthusiastic do not readily give up 
 hope; and notwithstanding the uncompro- 
 mising hostility of her parent, she fancied 
 that there was a prospect, though a very 
 remote one, of her attachment gaining his 
 approval. She created in that ideal picture 
 gallery — her youthful mind — a vision that 
 answered to her sanguine wishes. She 
 could imagine a Prince of the exiled family, 
 winning the throne of his ancestors with the 
 energy of a hero ; and the powerful Minister 
 of the usurper, by a timely concession, 
 making his peace with his legitimate Sove- 
 reign. What she saw beyond this, was a 
 vista of brightness and beauty, that left 
 
176 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 nothing for doubt, and as little for appre- 
 hension. 
 
 The last meeting of the young lovers gave 
 to an hour more intensity of feeling than 
 could have been distributed over an age. 
 They knew that they must part. They 
 were equally weU aware that the obstacles 
 that stood in the way of their happiness, 
 were such as to render the rupture of their 
 attachment inevitable. Arabella Falkland 
 ventured to disclose to her disconsolate lover 
 the faint star that twinkled in her future — 
 but like herself, Horace Walpole was devoted 
 to his parent. He would not hear of a pos- 
 sibility, that in his eyes was a degradation to 
 his father ; and being better informed of the 
 state and feeling of his country, considered 
 the prospects of the Pretender to be quite 
 desperate. 
 
 They parted. Our hero kept liis attach- 
 ment a profound secret even from his nearest 
 friends, and strove to consider it only as a 
 brilhant dream, which had vanished without 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 177 
 
 leaving the slightest tangible ipvoof of its 
 visitation. Arabella Falkland also regarded 
 it as a dream — but it was a dream from 
 which she had been disturbed without having 
 been thoroughly awakened. Her romantic 
 disposition — her poetical imagination, united 
 mth a peculiarly sensitive organization, 
 rendered the impressions which had been 
 made dming that agreeable intunacy too 
 durable to be as readily erased as Lord Falk- 
 land desired. 
 
 There was evidently a struggle going on 
 — generally the most intense of all moral 
 struoffrles — the strufr^^le of inclination with 
 
 CO CO 
 
 duty; and although there were no other 
 indications of it than were to be found in a 
 fading complexion, an absent manner, and 
 a spiritless gaze, it was as severe as if its 
 sioms had been a thousand times more de- 
 
 o 
 
 monstrative. The only thing that sup- 
 ported her in this conflict was her pride. 
 She felt that she possessed too high a 
 position to allow herself to be humiliated by 
 
 I 3 
 
178 STRAWBERKY HILL. 
 
 a subserviency to her inclinations. It was 
 not for a daughter of her illustrious house, 
 to pine, because a stern necessity had made 
 it a duty to stifle her emotions. Never- 
 theless — so omnipotent is affection, despite 
 of all influences — she did suffer herself to 
 be humiliated in the sense she had implied ; 
 she did pine, even whilst striving most ear- 
 nestly to emancipate herself from the sub- 
 jection she could not remove. 
 
 It is impossible to say how many moon- 
 lio^ht nio^hts she had sat at the same bal- 
 cony, with the same lute in her lap, and 
 the same soft music passing from its strings, 
 as she murmured the melodious words of 
 the Italian poet of whom her absent lover 
 had been so ardent an admirer. Equally 
 vain is it to enumerate the saunterings 
 throuo^h favourite walks — the loiterin^rs 
 at particular spots — and the lingering be- 
 side certain trees and fountains, which 
 marked her solitary rambles, Had any one 
 told her she sought such places that she 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 179 
 
 might recall those associations connected 
 with them, which enabled her to renew the 
 gratification she had then and there expe- 
 perienced, for the first time, in the society 
 of one she was bound to forget, her pride 
 would have been up in arms in an instant, 
 and she would have indignantly repudiated 
 such a suggestion. Xevertheles^, it was 
 strictly true. 
 
 Arabella Falkland had acquiesced in her 
 father's wishes. Apparently, she had be- 
 come convinced that she ought to have no 
 feeling in common with a Walpole. She 
 had expressed to the young gentleman her 
 determination to break off the affectionate 
 intercourse that she unwittingly had allowed 
 to exist : aU the pride of her princely race 
 revolted aofainst the idea of a dausfhter of 
 that ancient house entertaining a passion 
 for a son of the worst enemy of her 
 father and her sovereign. She had parted 
 from her lover — she had burst asunder 
 the bonds that had united them; yet he 
 
180 STRAWBERIIY HILL. 
 
 had scarcely crossed the channel, when she 
 felt the conviction creeping upon her mind, 
 that she had been the suicide of her own 
 happiness. 
 
 Lord Falkland was not an unobservant 
 spectator of his child's state of mind; but 
 he was too Avise a man to attempt to com- 
 l)at it. He found that there were other 
 uses for diplomacy besides attempts to de- 
 lude courts and cabinets. He saw that a 
 new pursuit was necessary to divert his 
 daughter's attention, and exerted himself 
 to interest her as much as possible for the 
 unfortunate family to whom he had proved 
 himself so devotedly attached. He assimied 
 to take her into his confidence, and reveal 
 to her the prospects of the exiles consequent 
 upon his negociations in their behalf with 
 foreign powers. 
 
 She entered into this confidence with 
 wonderful readiness. Her sympathy was 
 most strongly awakened for the family of 
 her sovereign; and as his Lordship dilated 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 181 
 
 on the very sanguine hopes he appeared to 
 entertain of the youthful Prince, to whom 
 all loyal Jacobites gave the title of Prince 
 of Wales, the subject, in her eyes, acquired 
 additional interest. It was impossible, she 
 thought, to imagine a cause so worthy of 
 the advocacy of the loyal heart, as that of 
 the Stuarts. She made earnest inquiries 
 respecting the young Prince, and received, 
 with singular pleasure, her father's intima- 
 tion of the probability there existed of his 
 Royal Highness soon becoming a frequent 
 visitor at their villa. 
 
 Her romantic imagination was in rap- 
 tures, at the idea of rendering herself use- 
 ful towards advancing the fortunes of this 
 hopeful branch of the Stuart race; and to 
 some mysterious intimations, which his 
 Lordship had thought proper to drop occa- 
 sionally, of the great services she might 
 perfonn, did certain anticipated contingen- 
 cies occur, she listened with breathless in- 
 terest. 
 
182 STRAWBErtRY HILL. 
 
 It was during one of these half-myste- 
 rious, half-confidential communications, that 
 Lord Falkland and his daughter sat toge- 
 ther, in the twilight of a summer evening, 
 near the open window looking out upon the 
 noble terrace that was so great an orna- 
 ment to their villa. They sat together 
 alone, and so had sat for more than an hour : 
 the commandins: fisrure of the sa^^^acious 
 statesman, -with his proud and intellectual 
 countenance, harmonizing well with the fine 
 form and lofty beauty of his daughter, 
 whose flashing eyes appeared to resume 
 their wonted brilliancy, as she sat listening 
 to his stirring representations of the favour- 
 able intentions of the Court of France to- 
 wards his royal master. But the time had 
 passed without her perceiving it — so ab- 
 sorbed was she with the eloquent discourse 
 to which she had been listening. 
 
 " But it is not to foreign intervention 
 solely," he observed with emphasis, "that 
 his Majesty looks forward to that restoration 
 
STRA\YBERRY HILL. 183 
 
 for which all his faithful servants so ear- 
 nestly pray. It would be quite at variance 
 with his gracious disposition to be obliged to 
 conquer his kingdom. The triumj)h would 
 be valueless in his eyes, that could be pur- 
 chased only at the expense of the blood of 
 his subjects." 
 
 The young enthusiast paused, as usual, 
 when she anticipated some important revela- 
 tion — which, from these fine flourishes, she 
 certainly did anticipate. 
 
 " In England," he continued, sinking his 
 voice to a more confidential tone, " there is 
 an incalculable number of the King's friends. 
 We know from the very best authority, that, 
 from the highest peer in the realm to the 
 humblest peasant, the cause of the Stuarts 
 has most devoted partizans, and that nothing 
 more is necessary than the landing in the 
 kingdom of a sufiicient armed force to oppose 
 that of the usurper, for these to flock to his 
 Majesty's banner in thousands and tens of 
 thousands." 
 
184 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 " AYliat a Morious moment will that be ! " 
 exclaimed ^liss Falkland, warmly : '' There 
 is nothing I so ardently desire to behold, as 
 such a spirit-stirring spectacle as a brave 
 nation, like our dear countrymen, rising in 
 arms to support the cause of their legitimate 
 sovereign." 
 
 " I think it not at all improbable that such 
 a spectacle you may have an opportunity of 
 beholding," observed her father. 
 
 " Indeed ! " cried the young lady, evidently 
 as much surprised as delighted. 
 
 " Yes, my child," he replied, '' the time, 
 possibly, is not far off, when we may both 
 be treading our native soil — ay, both be 
 enjo\'ing, to our hearts' content, the inap- 
 preciable comforts of our long lost Falkland 
 Court." 
 
 " My dear father, what blessings have you 
 in store for your daughter ! Dear England 
 has appeared to me a kind of Paradise, to 
 enter which I might long and long in vain. 
 But Falkland Court — how have I treasured 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 185 
 
 in my mind every feature of that hallowed 
 spot which I could prevail on you to make 
 known to me ! If ever human feeling felt 
 the influence of a home-sickness, I have lan- 
 guished to behold the residence of my 
 ancestors. Dear Falkland Court, what 
 would I irive to be within so blessed a 
 sanctuary ! " 
 
 " Do you think you could venture to run 
 some risk to advance the interests of your 
 sovereign?" inquired his Lordship. 
 
 "Am I a Falkland?" she replied, — and her 
 fine features were as expressive of dignity as 
 of loveliness. " Rest assured, my dear 
 father, there is no danger I am afraid to 
 meet in a good cause ; rest assured, too, that 
 there is notliing I should so much desire to 
 do, as to serve, under any circumstances of 
 peril or difficulty, the cause of our beloved 
 monarch." 
 
 " My child," exclaimed the father, with 
 emotion, " I cannot entertain the slightest 
 doubt of your courage or of your ability; 
 
186 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 and it is very possible in due course of time 
 I may make trial of both. I have lately 
 sometimes thought that your presence in 
 England, where you are not at all known, 
 might be extremely to his Majesty's service, 
 as a medium of communication with the 
 leading noblemen and gentlemen who may 
 be considered the Kinc^'s friends. 
 
 " But," he added, in a more serious 
 tone and manner, " before I can suffer you 
 to embark in so responsible a business, I 
 must be assured of your entire devotion to 
 the cause. Do not misunderstand me. You 
 are young, and have already shewn yourself 
 much too easily led by hastily formed impres- 
 sions. It would not do, where the lives and 
 fortunes of many gallant noblemen are com- 
 promised, to send amongst them one whose 
 heart was with their enemy. The inspired text 
 says, ' Xo man can serve two masters ; ' nor 
 can such double service be allowed to a woman. 
 If your feelings and sentiments are given to 
 any one known to be in bitter opposition to 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 187 
 
 US, your support can be dispensed ^dth ; but 
 if, on the contrary, you determine to abandon 
 all thought and sympathy, save for your legi- 
 timate sovereign and his faithful partizans, 
 there cannot be a question that you may 
 make yourself instrumental to the happy 
 restoration all his Majesty's loyal subjects 
 have so much at heart." 
 
 Miss Falkland had cast down her eyes 
 during the delivery of the last sentences, and 
 by her swellmg bosom it was easy to per- 
 ceive that she was under the influence of 
 considerable emotion. As her father con- 
 cluded, she raised her eyes, T\dth a glance 
 full of determination, to his own, and placed 
 her hand in his. It trembled slightly, but 
 the sagacious statesman did not choose to 
 notice this feminine weakness. He pressed 
 it tenderly, and then, drawing her- towards 
 him, imprinted an affectionate caress upon 
 her forehead. They understood each other. 
 
 " I have been led into these remarks, my 
 love," he resumed, puUing a letter out of his 
 
188 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 coat-pocket, " chiefly in consequence of a 
 communication I have received from your 
 aunt." 
 
 "From Aunt Furbelowe?" inquired the 
 young lady, with sudden animation. 
 
 " From the Dowager Lady Furbelowe," 
 he replied. " My sister appears as irrational 
 and inconsistent as ever. Fashion and 
 politics, literature and conspiracies, by turns 
 have full possession of that most unsteady 
 vane, her ladyship's mind. Did I not know 
 that her principles were as stable as her 
 caprices were evanescent, I should be more 
 careless respecting her correspondence than 
 might be quite proper in so near a relation." 
 
 " Oh, Papa, you must not be so severe. 
 Aunt Furbelowe is a monstrous favourite of 
 mine. I have never seen her, it is true, yet 
 her oddities have made her as familiar to me 
 as though I had been in constant intimacy 
 with her all my life. But pray indulge me 
 with a perusal of her Ladyship's letter." 
 
 The indulgence requested was immediately 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 189 
 
 allowed, and Miss Falkland was soon engaged 
 upon the following curious epistle : — 
 
 " The Dowager Lady Furbelow e^ at Scar- 
 borough^ to Viscount Falkland, at Borne, 
 
 *' My Dear Brother, — The Doctors have 
 ordered me to Scarborough to drink the 
 waters ; and though I hugely suspect them 
 to be a set of ignorant quacks, who know- 
 no more of my constitution than they do of 
 the Pyramids, I have posted through I know 
 not how many miles of atrocious road, been 
 twice stopped by highwa^-men, once be- 
 nighted, and thrice upset, and managed to 
 get to the wells mth whole bones, though 
 deucedly hipped, as you may suppose. 
 
 " I have no doubt that the to^\m are vastly 
 sorry I have left them, even for a season ; I 
 was so much in the habit of affording them 
 subjects for conversation. I do not suppose 
 that any woman of my age ever gave her 
 friends such constant cause for marvelling, 
 back-biting, and scandal. Many an honest 
 
190 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 dolt has found, in the retaihng of my most 
 intolerable sayings and doings, such a relief 
 from the vapours as the faculty could never 
 have given him, had he feed them even in 
 strict accordance with their own appreciation 
 of themselves. Now, alas ! they have no 
 better resource than my Lady Caroline 
 Fitzroy, and her little freedoms — or my 
 Lady Wortley Montagu, and her great ones. 
 " Unfortunately, the vagaries of the Elec- 
 tor of Planover with the self-denying Wall- 
 moden, and those of his son vnth the no 
 less amiable vestal Lady Archibald Hamilton, 
 are as familiar as the tricks of Powell's 
 puppets, without being half so diverting. 
 Vice and folly in high places come as natu- 
 rally as two chairmen to a sedan; and so 
 common are they, that to get distinguished 
 by the town, an old fool like myself must 
 needs do somethinc^ vicious and foolish to a 
 degree. My favourite vice at present would 
 be slander — a vice sacred to old women of 
 both sexes — but unfortunately for its due 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 191 
 
 exhibition, I can say nothing of the com- 
 pany I am forced to keep, that can count to 
 their discredit or damage their reputations 
 — credit and reputation being alike out of the 
 question ; and when I play the fool, instead 
 of having an audience in my friends, I find 
 them all rivalling me in the same performance. 
 " This, to me, has all the monotony of Mrs. 
 Salmon's Avax-work — and so I have thought 
 proper to change it for a little treason. My 
 Lady Townshend and I have laid our heads 
 together, after consulting with other Jacobites, 
 who are permitted the singular indulgence 
 of carrying their heads upon their shoulders ; 
 and we have come to the conclusion, that 
 they were never so rife for a movement in 
 favour of the Chevalier as they are now. 
 The Whigs are disunited — the Tories dis- 
 contented — the courtiers would be glad of 
 a change where there is less necessity for 
 studying German — and even the Elector and 
 his son would no doubt be monstrous grati- 
 fied at the prospect of having some one to 
 
192 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 quarrel with, to vary a little their eternal 
 squabbles with each other. 
 
 " Walpole is the only one of the ministers 
 who seems perfectly content ^vith the pre- 
 sent state of things ; but if a man who has 
 it all his own way is not satisfied, he must 
 be the most unconscionable dog under the 
 sun. He looks as jovial as a farmer after 
 having secured an ample harvest : but the 
 greater jollity, you may be sure, the more 
 unsatisfactory would be the prospects of 
 Jacobitism. Your old acquaintance St. 
 John is in the field ; but he is the fox who, 
 having lost his tail in a trap, is persuading 
 his friends to dispense -with the same appen- 
 dage. He is now in monstrous favour with 
 Pulteney, W}mdham, and the rest of the 
 patriots, who, if such members are not 
 more useful to them than their heads, 
 might, one would think, very easily be 
 convinced of the possibility of doing with- 
 out them. 
 
 " By the way, Walpole has a son just 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 193 
 
 entered Parliament — A young fellow, they 
 say, of some parts — who, if not a wit him- 
 self, tries to be mistaken for one, by passing 
 in a crowd of such — as a bad shilling passes 
 in a handful of sterHns; coin. If Charles 
 Townshend, and George Selwyn, Sir Charles 
 Hanbury Williams, and Henry Conway, 
 and other privileged jesters, happen to be 
 following their customary occupation of 
 being more merry than wise, you may be 
 sure Horace Walpole has got amongst them, 
 and, like a fly on a carriage-wheel, is 
 mightily astonished at the dust he is kick- 
 ing up around him. But this young fellow, 
 it seems, must needs be a man of gallantry 
 as well as a wit ; and devotes himself to cer- 
 tain ladies, who are well known for the 
 favour they bestow on all young gentlemen 
 of his merit and enterprise. 
 
 " I have almost forgotten to tell you what 
 bargains I have secured at the China bazaar 
 — amongst others, a pair of the greatest 
 treasures of monstrous griffins ever seen in 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
194 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 London, which I carried off in spite of the 
 opposition of two Duchesses, a Countess, and 
 an Admiral's A\ddow. Since when I have 
 had the misfortune to break one, and I shall 
 be inconsolable till I match it. If there 
 should be any good old china procurable 
 at Rome, pray try what you can do for 
 me. I give you full directions to buy up 
 all the griffins in the place, rather than 
 lose a chance of matching my matchless 
 monstrosity. 
 
 " I leave till the last the most important 
 part of my communication. All persons 
 known to profess feelings in favour of the 
 Chevalier are so strictly watched by the 
 emissaries of the Government, that it is 
 almost impossible for one to perform any 
 particular service without its immediately 
 becoming known. It struck me, that we 
 must have the aid of some one totally un- 
 knoAvn to the usurper's innumerable spies; 
 and a happy thought brought me the image 
 of my niece Arabella, of whose talents and 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 195 
 
 acquirements I have heard such favour- 
 able notices. If you can send her to Eno-- 
 land, rely on it she will find a home under 
 my roof, and I will take especial care of 
 her welfare and yours. Think of this ; — A 
 residence in London may be of vast advan- 
 tage to the child's prospects. But if you 
 send her, be sure you don't forget the 
 griffin. Remember; I must have a griffin 
 at any price. 
 
 " From your loving Sister, 
 " Dorothy Furbelowe." 
 
 "P.S. Dear Brother. — I can't pro- 
 cure any good snuff. I prefer right Spanish 
 when I can get it; but I suppose you have 
 plenty at Rome of the best sort. Popes and 
 Cardinals are not likely to tickle their holy 
 noses with rubbish. Get me a pound or 
 two, with a good stock of pulvillio and 
 citron-water. I have got the most ador- 
 able little pug you ever saw; but my mon- 
 key is a sad mischievous rogue — he is so 
 
 k2 
 
196 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 bent on pulling oiF people's periwigs, that 
 I shall be obliged to keep him out of the 
 way of my visitors. I trust the King is 
 well, and likewise the Holy Father — these 
 names my Protestant friends associate mth 
 another personage, mth whom they may 
 probably some day be on more intimate 
 terms. Do not fail to name my ideas to 
 his Majesty respecting the necessity of strik- 
 ing a great blow : but of all things pray 
 don't forget the griffin. — D. F." 
 
 The perusal of this strange document ex- 
 cited various feelings in the breast of Ara- 
 bella Falkland ; but the passage relating to 
 Horace Walpole made a deep and lasting 
 impression. She now shewed a remarkable 
 eagerness to fulfil her father's mshes in 
 every respect. It was impossible to have 
 met vdth a more devoted Jacobite, or a 
 more loyal adherent to the phantom of Bri- 
 tish Sovereignty, then -with so much diffi- 
 culty kept up at Rome. Politics appeared 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 197 
 
 completely to have dethroned Love in her 
 affections. Her pride had been wounded by 
 the assumed levity of her lover, who, al- 
 though he had, at her own request, parted 
 from her absolutely and for ever, she fan- 
 cied committed an unpardonable offence, in 
 so readily availing hunself of his freedom 
 to shew how completely he had thrown off* 
 her influence. 
 
 Arabella Falkland from that day became 
 an enthusiastic adherent of the Stuarts. 
 She haughtily determined to forget the un- 
 worthy son of the detested minister. In a 
 future page we shall see how this detenni- 
 nation was fulfilled. 
 
198 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE PORTENTOUS QUARREL. 
 
 We all know the oft-quoted passage, from 
 the source of nine-tenths of our most fami- 
 liar quotations, illustrative of the peculiar 
 ways in which greatness is acquired. Whe- 
 ther Sir Robert Walpole achieved his, or had 
 it thrust upon him, we cannot now stop to 
 inquire : but certain it is, he might, at the 
 period we are illustrating, have been pro- 
 nounced the greatest man in England. 
 
 Judging from appearances, greatness now- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 199 
 
 a-days is made up of very curious elements. 
 One achieves it by doing little things on a 
 great scale, and another by doing great 
 things in some new, marvellous, little way. 
 Greatness in parliament looks rather to ma- 
 jorities than to eloquence, and has its foun- 
 dation on a happy facility in shifting its prin- 
 ciples ; so that it has no fixed position, but 
 stands on the pivot of expediency, which 
 turns round as by the operation of some 
 shifting magnet, concealed from the public 
 eye. 
 
 Greatness in the legal profession embodies 
 quahties which, in any other, could not fail 
 of beino^ reo:arded as infamous. The man 
 who, for a great hire, defends, by his oratory 
 and knowledge of the law, murderers and 
 wretches of the most depraved character, 
 and dies after having realised a fortune and 
 secured a peerage, is pronounced a great 
 lawyer. 
 
 In the profession of a physician, greatness 
 seems to reside in a certain aptitude for 
 
200 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 assuming the most marvellous properties in 
 the simplest agents. One ventures to appear 
 as a ministering angel with a medicine chest 
 of the most approved poisons ; whilst another 
 finds his whole pharmacopa3ia in a glass of 
 cold water. 
 
 In literature we have greatness under 
 various aspects — sometimes springing up in 
 a night, like Jonah's gourd — sometimes rot- 
 ting in a day, like a diseased potato. One 
 instance has recently been very prominently 
 brought before us, in a certain foreign writer 
 pretending to the rank of an historian, and 
 putting forth his claims to greatness in the 
 able manner in which he seeks to '^ feed fat 
 the ancient grudge" of his countrymen 
 aofainst Eno^land. If ]\I. Thiers can be 
 allowed the style and title of " Great," he 
 must share it with his iUustrious predeces- 
 sors in the same style of composition — Fer- 
 dinand Mendez Pinto, and Baron Mun- 
 chausen. 
 
 In science, we are permitted to gather our 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 201 
 
 ideas of greatness from the exaggerated 
 notions of modern scientific philosophy. 
 Every man seems to be looking at everything 
 through Lord Rosse's monster telescope. 
 They turn it in the direction of the past, and 
 they see nothing but stupendous Megathe- 
 riums, and immeasurable Saurians. They 
 shew the fossil tail of an extinct monstrosity, 
 possessing more joints than the caudal extre- 
 mity of a certain Irish member, which is long 
 enough to astonish even Lord Monboddo. If 
 these prodigious discoveries constitute a just 
 and proper claim to greatness, then these phi- 
 losophers must be content to share it with the 
 first discoverer of the American sea-serpent. 
 In art, greatness also has been looked upon 
 as an affair of size rather than skill. The 
 man who painted pictures of so Brobdignagian 
 a character, as each to require nearly an acre 
 of wall to itself, was, of course, a much 
 greater painter than he whose feeble talents 
 found ample space in a three-quarter or a 
 kit-cat. The vastness of his genius will 
 
 K 3 
 
202 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 not allow him, like such humble scrubs as 
 Titian and Vandyke, to delineate single ob- 
 jects ; he paints whole Houses of Commons on 
 one canvass — nay, his passion for the mul- 
 titudinous has led him to embark in such 
 many-headed monsters as City festivals and 
 Royal Christenings. 
 
 AVe have even heard that this taste has 
 proceeded to such an extent, that a pictorial 
 Knight of great celebrity has taken for a 
 subject a review of the Household troops in 
 Hyde Park, in which every figure is to be a 
 portrait, and all warranted likenesses, from 
 the humblest drummer-boy up to the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief. To make the picture a 
 greater bargain, the average number of 
 spectators will be ''thrown in;" as a few 
 thousand persons, more or less, cannot be of 
 the slightest importance, the artist having 
 as great a facility in manufacturing figures, 
 as Babbage's calculating machine. 
 
 The greatness of a minister, however, is a 
 very different matter to the greatness of all 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 20 O 
 
 Other great men. In our enlightened era, 
 we might suppose it to consist of a daily 
 roasting in the newspapers — a weekly squib- 
 bing from Punch — an incessant bombard- 
 ment from those heavy batteries, the Quar- 
 terly Eeviews — and an ever- varying, never- 
 failing cut Sit your physiognomy from the 
 dexterous weapon of H. B. In this free 
 country, a minister is everybody's game; 
 and therefore it is that everybody lets fly at 
 him. Let him do what he will, or go where 
 he will, he must reconcile himself to facing a 
 general discharge from arms of every calibre, 
 from that monster ordnance, the Times, to 
 the pop-gun of a fashionable novelist. 
 
 In the days of Sir Robert Walpole, mat- 
 ters, perhaps, were not quite so bad for the 
 poor man. The English people had not 
 arrived at a full knowledge of the extraor- 
 dinary extent of abuse it was proper to give 
 to the leader of the Government. They 
 had not learned that a First Lord of the 
 Treasury, like a sucking-pig, requires 2on- 
 
20-4 STRAWBERRY HELL. 
 
 stant basting. Nevertheless, if Sir Robert 
 had not as careful a roasting, he found many 
 assistants ia tlie political cuisine^ who pro- 
 vided for him as though he was a lobster, 
 instead of a minister, by endeavouring to 
 keep him in constant hot water. If there 
 was not sufficient of this sort of thing to be 
 had at the hands of his opponents, he was 
 sure to find more than enough from one or 
 other of his coadjutors. 
 
 The materials that form a Government, 
 like those that make a salad, require judicious 
 handling to render the mixture sufficiently 
 homogeneous. Put in the oil of suavity as 
 liberally as possible, you will not always 
 prevent the vinegar of envy and jealousy 
 from becoming predominant; and flavour 
 your dish with all the Attic salt in the world, 
 you cannot in every instance avoid the 
 insipidity of mediocrity from spoiling its 
 rehsh. 
 
 So it was with the Ministry of George II. 
 Sir Robert Walpole gave strength, solidity. 
 
STRAWBERRY HELL. 205 
 
 and respectability to it. His genius inspired 
 it with the vigorous vitality that had made 
 itself manifest in all its actions. In a period 
 of extraordinary peril, his spirit had been 
 developed in every measure, and his skill 
 had conducted it towards every trimnph. 
 In the sense Louis XIY. had arrogantly de- 
 clared that he was the State, Sir Kobert 
 Walpole might have boasted that he was the 
 Government. 
 
 The King was well aware of his quahfica- 
 tions. The able and amiable Queen Caroline 
 on her death-bed had recommended — not the 
 servant to the master, but the master to the 
 servant; and, singularly enough, his Majesty 
 regarded the recommendation as more bind- 
 ing than any promise that might then have 
 been exacted from him. He subsequently 
 placed himself in the hands of AValpole, -with 
 as much confidence in his talents as respect 
 for his worth ; and aU the insinuations, and 
 all the fierce attacks of his active enemies, 
 could not in the slightest degree affect the 
 
206 STRAA\T3ERRY HILL. 
 
 liigli opinion liis royal master entertained of 
 him. 
 
 This regard was exhibited too openly to 
 be agreeable even to some of his coadjutors. 
 In particidar, one weak and pompous man, 
 the Duke of Xewcastle, saw in it a slight to 
 his superior rank, and a neglect of his — what 
 we may be allowed to style, singular know- 
 ledge in the science of government, that gave 
 him vast offence. His Grace was not with- 
 out a certain degree of power — and he had a 
 brother, Henry Pelham, who also put forth 
 no inconsiderable claims to statesmanship. 
 He had also borough influence to a very 
 large extent, and consequently a formidable 
 band of political retainers. 
 
 With the Duke of Newcastle, the machi- 
 nations of the subtle Bolingbroke had already 
 commenced, and in an indirect manner he 
 had so worked upon the pride and vanity of 
 his Grace, that the Pelham blood was in a 
 state of fermentation, and in both himself 
 and his brother only waited the proper 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 207 
 
 moment for displaying itself to effect the 
 overthrow of their political chief. Boling- 
 broke, in the course of his philosophical 
 studies, had learned the value of the adage, 
 Divide et impera^ and was bent on working 
 the destruction of the man he hated, by 
 detaching from his party so important a 
 section of it as these shallow Pelhams. 
 
 Sir Robert had a more attached associate, 
 and a much nearer connection, in his coad- 
 jutor and brother-in-law, Lord Townshend ; 
 a nobleman who had passed the best part of 
 his life in the service of the State, had en- 
 joyed much of the confidence of the late 
 King, and, for a Minister, might be said to 
 have possessed more than the average degree 
 of honesty. He had early embraced the 
 cause of the Hanoverian succession, and in 
 troublous times had supported it with much 
 energy and a respectable degree of talent. 
 
 The failinGf of Lord ToTVTishend was 
 warmth of temper. He was a man of at- 
 tainments very superior to those of the 
 
182 STKAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 feeble Duke of Newcastle ; and Lord Boling- 
 broke knew that the arts that would succeed 
 with his Grace, would be quite thro^vn away 
 upon his Lordship. His only hope of 
 detaching him from his brother-in-law, 
 existed in the chance of the Prime Minister 
 doing or saying something that should 
 irritate the irritable Secretary of State, so 
 as to cause a permanent breach between 
 them. 
 
 They were in the habit of meeting almost 
 daily at the house of a mutual friend in 
 Cleveland Row, near St. James's Palace. Of 
 this Lord Bolingbroke had notice, through 
 one of his numerous confederates. He also 
 learned the extremely friendly — nay, even 
 affectionate terms in which the brothers-in- 
 law continued to live mth each other. The 
 philosopher was in despair ; for although 
 the Secretary of State was extremely irri- 
 table, it so happened that the Prime Minis- 
 ter was a man of boundless good humour. 
 However ready the other might be to take 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 209 
 
 offence, he appeared the last man in the 
 world capable of giving it. 
 
 It chanced that they had agreed to meet, 
 as usual, to consider together some impor- 
 tant measure that was about to be submit- 
 ted to the King in Council. Sir Robert had 
 been detained by the King considerably 
 beyond his time. Now, if there was one 
 thing likely to put Lord Townshend out of 
 temper, it was bemg kept w^aiting. He 
 was a man who knew the value of time, 
 and could not endure to see it squan- 
 dered. 
 
 The suite of drawing-rooms in Cleveland 
 Row were as prettily furnished, according to 
 the prevailing taste, as could have been ex- 
 pected in the residence of a man of fashion. 
 There were ugly pictures on the walls, and 
 ugly china ornaments on the chimney- 
 pieces, ugly mirrors, and an ugly carpet, 
 mth the usual allowance of ugly chairs, 
 tables, and comer cupboards. 
 
 An elderly man of gentlemanly appear- 
 
210 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ance, with features marked by a very evi- 
 dent im23atience, was seated on a chair near 
 one of the windows, apparently listening 
 to some observations from a round smooth- 
 faced personage, whose features were elo- 
 quent of shallo-wness and self-conceit, while 
 his manners were meant to be the perfec- 
 tion of courtly bearing, mingled with a vast 
 affectation of confidence and personal re- 
 gard. The elder of the two appeared to be 
 listening : but in fact he gave scarcely any 
 attention to his companion; his thoughts 
 were bearing, with a very unpleasant inten- 
 sity, on the unpleasant fact, that he had 
 been kept waiting half an hour. 
 
 These two individuals were Lord Towns- 
 hend, the Secretary of State, and Bubb 
 Doddington, Esq. — a person, as we have 
 already stated, believed to be the chief 
 confidant and adviser of the Prince of 
 Wales: but although Mr. Doddington had 
 no objection whatever to be in the con- 
 fidence of the Heir Apparent, he chose 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 211 
 
 to entertain a sort of sneaking kindness 
 for the principal ministers of the King. 
 In short, he was one of those far-seeing 
 men who prepare themselves for all emer- 
 gencies. He sought to provide for every 
 possible contingency with so much care, 
 that even if the whole world should be turned 
 topsy turvy, Bubb Doddington would fall 
 upon his legs. 
 
 It was curious to denote the o^atherino^ 
 impatience spreading like a cloud over the 
 fine features of Lord Townshend, and ob- 
 serve, at the same time, the suavity and 
 devotion that made the inexpressive fea- 
 tures of his companion so very expressive. 
 Mr. Bubb Doddington had a great regard 
 for my Lord Townshend; indeed, he took 
 the trouble of asserting, that his attachment 
 to his Majesty was unabated, not^vithstand- 
 ing he had been driven into the arms of 
 the Opposition by a refusal of his claims 
 to a peerage, to satisfy which in the son 
 of an apothecary, as he was said to be. 
 
212 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 seemed, according to the jocose expression 
 of George Sehvyn, " a physic-al impossi- 
 bility." 
 
 " Well, you see my Lord," said Mr. Dod- 
 dington, with great self-complacency, '^ it is 
 not because I have the honour of being very 
 much in the confidence of his Royal High- 
 ness — indeed, between ourselves, I doubt 
 this confidential feeling on his part could be 
 exceeded — for, no later than last night, his 
 Royal Highness condescended to mn tAvo 
 hundred pounds from me, at a very inte- 
 testing game at cards he was so very good 
 as to show me how to play. But it is not, 
 as I was going to say, because I am so much 
 in the confidence of the Prince, that I 
 should be on ill terms with the Ministers 
 of the CroAvn. Indeed I never felt more 
 disposed than at present to cultivate a 
 good understanding mth his Majesty's 
 advisers — particularly with one so well 
 esteemed of the King as my Lord Towns- 
 hend." 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 213 
 
 Mv Lord Townshencl took no notice of 
 the compliment. 
 
 " I should have felt great pleasure," con- 
 tinued the disappointed aspirant for a peer- 
 age, "in meeeting so powerfal a friend of 
 his Majesty as Sir Robert Walpole; but 
 then, I am well aware his time is so conti- 
 nually taken up, by the calls made upon it 
 by his Majesty, that he is scarcely ever out 
 of the royal closet." 
 
 "How do you know that?" sharply de- 
 manded his companion. 
 
 " Oh, I 've reason to believe it 's quite no- 
 torious." 
 
 "Have you?" gruffly remarked the Se- 
 cretary of State. 
 
 "Oh yes indeed!" exclaimed the other, 
 " Sir Robert, I have heard, is far from de- 
 sirous of ha\ing it a secret. To be sure, it 
 is expecting too much to think he would 
 conceal what would prove to the world how 
 much more the King tliinks of him than of 
 his colleagues." 
 
214 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 " You think so, do you ? " demanded Lord 
 Townshend, only kept from picking a quarrel 
 i^dth his companion, by recalling to his mind 
 the gentleman's insignificance. 
 
 '' I am not singular in my opinion, my 
 Lord ; that you may depend," continued 
 Bubb Doddington. "It is a matter that 
 excites a monstrous deal of observation. 
 People marvel so experienced a statesman as 
 my Lord Townshend should, aj^parently, be 
 so little in his sovereign's estimation, as this 
 monopoly of the royal attention by Sir 
 Eol3ert Walpole seems to warrant." 
 
 '' They do, eh ! " cried the Secretary of 
 State, eyeing the figure of the Prince's 
 counsellor from head to foot with cer- 
 tainly anything but a friendly scrutiny; 
 and adding, -with rather a heightened 
 complexion, " Let me tell you, Mr. Bubb 
 Doddington, I think all such people a 
 pack of fools, and that it would be a mon- 
 strous deal better for them to mind their 
 OAvn business. Sir Robert Walpole's favour 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 215 
 
 with the King is well known, and creates no 
 uneasiness among his friends, though I am 
 well aware that it does amongst his enemies. 
 What my colleagues may think of such pre- 
 ference, I cannot pretend to say ; but at least 
 /have no cause to be dissatisfied with it. 
 His Majesty has given me no reason to ima- 
 gine that my services have been overlooked ; 
 and as for Sir Robert, I feel satisfied he is 
 not more with the King than is required by 
 his high position in his Majesty's councils. 
 However, perhaps it would be as well were 
 you to bring this subject before his attention 
 yourself; and as I expect him to enter the 
 room every moment, you cannot have a 
 better opportunity for satisfpng your 
 curiosity." 
 
 The apothecary's son vehemently dis- 
 claimed any curiosity; and as soon as he 
 heard the Prime Minister's expected entrance 
 into the house, it acted upon him as a spur 
 to his own inclinations. He rose to depart, 
 uttering a thousand professions of regard. 
 
216 STRAWBEERY HILL. 
 
 To these his companion paid very little atten- 
 tion. His spirits were a little ruffled. At 
 any other thne he would have immediately 
 detected the ruse that was being played upon 
 him, and laughed it to scorn. But notwith- 
 standing he had met it with so much spirit, 
 the insinuation sank deep into his heart; 
 and the irritation he had been made to expe- 
 rience through the want of punctuality of 
 his colleague, had increased tenfold, after he 
 had heard his friend Doddington's allusions. 
 
 Scarcely had that gentleman taken his 
 departure, when the voice of Sir Eobert 
 Walpole on the stairs announced his arrival ; 
 and the next moment he entered with a 
 forced smile, and an abortive attempt at a 
 little pleasantry. 
 
 There was a marked contrast in the ap- 
 pearance of the two ministers. Both were 
 dressed in the Court suit of the time — the 
 full ruffle — the well-arranged wig — the taper 
 sword, and the budded shoes, were ahke in 
 each. Their countenances, however, differed. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 217 
 
 if their costume did not. The face of the 
 First Lord of the Treasury beamed like a 
 harvest-moon. No physiognomist would 
 have suspected such pleasant features being 
 the index of a mind made up of the most 
 intricate machinery. The calmest lake in 
 a valley, warmed by a glorying sun, never 
 looked more bright and tranquil. 
 
 There was, however, a flush spreading 
 over its broad disk, while entering the room 
 with his cocked-hat under his arm, as his 
 eye met the cold, and somewhat severe look 
 of the irritated Secretary of State. His sus- 
 picions were excited. He had noticed Bubb 
 Doddington, whom he not only knew to be 
 an adviser of the Prince of Wales, but a 
 connection of Bolingbroke's, stealthily leav- 
 ing the house, apparently wishing to escape 
 his recognition. The altered aspect of his 
 brother-in-law assured him his wily enemy 
 had been at work. At the same time Lord 
 Townshend felt satisfied, from the confusion 
 in his relative's countenance, that there 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
218 STRA^VBERRY UILL. 
 
 inust be some sinister object in his long con- 
 ference with the King; and every moment 
 felt more disposed to demand why he, an 
 old servant of the CroAvn, was treated with 
 so little confidence. 
 
 This was exactly the state of things that 
 the crafty Bolingbroke had laboured so cun- 
 ningly to produce. He would have rubbed 
 his hands in an ecstacy of secret congratu- 
 lation, could he have perceived the complete 
 success of his artifices. 
 
 " Townshend! " exclaimed the Prime 
 Minister abruptly, ''what was that fellow 
 doing here ? " 
 
 Now it so happened, that this was a style 
 in which Lord Townshend had hitherto never 
 been addressed by his brother-in-law, and he 
 could attribute its unceremonious tone only 
 to his being desirous of shewing the impor- 
 tance Avith which the King's unbounded con- 
 fidence invested him. The voice of authority 
 grated harshly on the irritated nerves of the 
 angry Secretary of State. He was not in a 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 219 
 
 humour to be dealt mtli in so offensive a 
 manner. He fired up instantly when he 
 fancied an affront was intended him — strode 
 towards his brother-in-law, crossed his arms, 
 looked him haughtily in the face, and replied, 
 "^Tiat 's that to you?" 
 
 " Oh, that 's the state of the case, is it, 
 my Lord?" said the other, coldly, ''you 
 must have carried on your secret negocia- 
 tions some time, to enable you to throw off 
 the mask so completely. Allow me to con- 
 gratulate your Lordship on your improved 
 prospects." 
 
 " Zounds! Sir, what d'ye mean? " shouted 
 the angry nobleman, in a voice of thunder. 
 
 " Oh, you are ashamed to acknowledge it," 
 exclaimed the Prime Minister. " Then I 
 suppose I must inform you, that I am aware 
 of your intrigue, cleverly as it has been car- 
 ried on. But let me tell your Lordship, as 
 the song says, 
 
 ' It 's as well to be off with the old love, 
 Before you are on with the new.' " 
 
 l2 
 
220 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ''I. care nothing for your old song — I know 
 nothing of your intrigue," answered the 
 Secretary of State, sharply. 
 
 " My Lord," observed the other, with a 
 contemptuous expression too evident to be 
 mistaken, " for once, there is no man's sin- 
 cerity whom I so much doubt as your 
 Lordship's." 
 
 This Avas adding fuel to the fire. To Lord 
 Townshend, the conscious superiority, as 
 shewn in the cold, quiet tone of his brother- 
 in-law, was bad enough; but the severe 
 reflection on his veracity which was expressed 
 in his words, was intolerable. A man of less 
 command over his temper would have been 
 excused a little intemperance upon such pro- 
 vocation, therefore an explosion from so 
 irritable a person might have been anti- 
 cipated. 
 
 " Zounds ! you old rascal ! " cried his 
 Lordship, passionately, " what do you mean 
 by that?" 
 
 " Do I live to be called rascal by such 
 
STRAWBERIIY HELL. 221 
 
 a superannuated scoundrel as you?" was 
 the equally passionate reply. 
 
 The angry old men, excited beyond the 
 ]x)unds of reason, simultaneously seized each 
 other with both hands violently by the 
 collar; and, as completely forgetting their 
 exalted position as their near relationship, 
 shook away with aU their force. 
 
 They appeared more like two fierce bull- 
 dogs, intent on worr^dng each other to death, 
 than the well-bred gentlemen they had 
 seemed a minute since — every moment, by 
 some coarse appellation or insulting remark, 
 adding fresh energy to their fierce passions ; 
 till, recollecting they were able to settle their 
 quarrel in a more becoming manner, they let 
 go their holds of their coat-collars, to seize 
 the handles of their swords. 
 
 " Come on, villain ! " shouted the Secre- 
 tary of State, drawing his sword T\ith a look 
 that threatened instant extermination. 
 
 " Defend yourself, h}'pocrite ! " cried the 
 Prime Minister, panting ^vith furious excite- 
 ment. 
 
222 STEAA\T3EPvRY HILL. 
 
 In an instant their blades crossed, and 
 in another the blood of one or both of them 
 might have been dyeing the carpet, had not 
 the door been hastily pushed open, and 
 several persons in the house, alarmed by the 
 noise, rushed in and separated them. 
 
 The sight of the intruders seemed to 
 waken the combatants to some sense of the 
 impropriety, if not to the folly of their con- 
 duct, in squabbling and fighting in another 
 person's house ; and they were so far pacified 
 as to discontinue the contest, though their 
 mutual animosity was far from being allayed. 
 
 " Another time, fellow, and another 
 place ! " cried Lord ToAvnshend, as some 
 friends were hurrying him out of the room. 
 Sir Robert Walpole was not permitted to 
 take any notice of the menace. He was in 
 the arms of his younger son, who was 
 manifesting the most lively anxiety in his 
 behalf. 
 
 It so happened that he had not long 
 entered the house with his friend George 
 
STI^\.WBERRY HILL. 223 
 
 Sehvyn, whose family were its inmates, when 
 his attention was attracted by the loud 
 sounds of angry altercation so near him. He 
 recognized his father's voice with a strange 
 tumult of excited feelings ; but it was only 
 when he became aware that the quarrel was 
 proceeding to acts of personal violence, that 
 he felt he dared risk an intrusion. He 
 rushed with his companions into the scene of 
 the conflict just in time to prevent mischief. 
 
 The greatest shock to his feelings, how- 
 ever, he soon found in what he considered 
 the coldness of his father. Sir Robert was 
 not quite well pleased at being found by his 
 son under circumstances so little creditable 
 to his understanding. He felt he had been 
 acting very like a fool, and something like a 
 madman ; and, in return for his son's solici- 
 tude, he could not avoid testifying a good 
 deal of dissatisfaction with himself, which the 
 sensitive young man, when he quitted him, 
 felt assured had been intended for him. 
 
 The quarrel between the first Lord of the 
 
224 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 Treasury and the Secretary of State, was 
 attended mth the result most agreeable to 
 that political engineer who was so busy 
 undermining the power of Sir Robert Wal- 
 pole. Lord Townshend sent in his resigna- 
 tion the same day ; and though in his calmer 
 moments he could not bring himself to enter 
 into a deadly conflict with so near a relative, 
 his angry spirit was not to be reconciled 
 into acting under his directing influence : he 
 retired altogether from public life. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 225 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE HEIR A^T) MAls^ FRIENDS. 
 
 Lady Archibald HA:yiiLTON was one of 
 those remarkably clever women, who fancy 
 themselves possessed of a patent whicli 
 raises them above public opinion. She 
 dressed a-la-mode — she gave parties — she 
 visited — she went to every kind of pubhc 
 entertainment; and when she had tired of 
 shewing herself to the town, went through 
 the same series of follies and gaieties at Bath, 
 Scarborough, and Tunbridge Wells; delud- 
 
 L 3 
 
226 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 in;? herself with the belief that she had 
 passed everywhere for a respectable cha- 
 racter. 
 
 But leaving out of the question her Lady- 
 ship's more than equivocal position with the 
 Prince of Wales, there Avere certain ru- 
 mours afloat in connection with her name, 
 that often gave it, in the eyes of the mo- 
 rahst, an extremely ugly complexion. Her 
 house was a very gay house — but there was 
 not much in that : the houses of other ladies 
 of fashion might just as well be called gay. 
 Then there was a good deal of what the 
 fashionable world called gallantry, believed 
 to be carried on there : this too might be 
 said of the houses of many other ladies of 
 quality. Added to which, it was reported 
 that play was permitted in her apartment, 
 Avhich, though it bore the name of high, 
 in a more moral sense deserved to be con- 
 sidered as low as roguery could sink it. 
 
 There is a natural buoyancy in some peo- 
 ple, that prevents them sinking where others 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 227 
 
 could not avoid instant destruction. A 
 man will jump oif a bridge ^ith heavy 
 stones in his pocket, and presently rise to 
 the surface vdih all the buoyancy of a cork — 
 no doubt to hear the satisfactory proverl) 
 which ensures security from drowning to 
 those who are born to a more ignomious 
 end. 
 
 So was it ^vith Lady Hamilton. Her 
 offences were heavy enough to have pre- 
 vented Lady Archibald ever getting her 
 head above water in the world, after her 
 plunge into its unfathomable vortex; but 
 in her Ladyship's " lightness" existed her 
 safety. She floated on bravely upon the 
 roughest waves. Hesivy as she had made 
 herself, she could not drown. She was 
 received almost everywhere — her rooms 
 were crowded mth company, and she had 
 always around her more admirers than she 
 knew how to dispose of — notwithstanding 
 that there was unquestionably a deal of 
 philanthropy in her disposition. 
 
228 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 Lady Arcliibald was peculiarly partial to 
 the society of young men of fortune; and 
 if they were also young men of wit and 
 spirit, her partiality became more demon- 
 strative. It might be thought that these 
 partialities would have been offensive to 
 her princely lover ; but he also had a pecu- 
 liar partiality for the young fellows about 
 town who had plenty of money, and could 
 render themselves pleasant company, and 
 he encouraged rather than disapproved of 
 her taste in that direction. How much her 
 card-tables were affected by this predilec- 
 tion, it is impossible to say — though it is 
 well known to us, that at Lady Hamilton's 
 the Prince was a pretty constant card- 
 player — and, singular to relate, always a 
 fortunate one. 
 
 Possibly, however, the possession of 
 wealth was only insisted on to make cer- 
 tain of the respectability of her guests — for 
 in those days riches, if not accompanied by 
 rank, were held by persons in such a posi- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 229 
 
 tion in society, that their respectability was 
 recognized as a matter of course. It was 
 not then the custom for persons in trade to 
 assume the rank of gentlemen : for such to 
 take upon themselves the title of Esquire — 
 so conunon an assumption in the present 
 day — would have been regarded as an enor- 
 mity equal to that of exercising the privi- 
 lege of franking a letter without enjoying 
 the necessary qualification. 
 
 Perhaps, then, with Lady Hamilton and 
 her royal lover, to be well off, was but 
 another form of the phrase to be well 
 bom; and the condition of being witty 
 was doubtless merely put forth to secure 
 them entertaining companions. Her La- 
 dyship deligTited to have round her the 
 sons of the most determined opponents of 
 the Prince of Wales. Such visits were 
 usually clandestine; nevertheless she en- 
 couraged them. She believed the power of 
 her attractions was shewn by their riskino- 
 these stolen visits. But it was rather the 
 
230 STRiiWBEERY HILL. 
 
 fashion to visit the Prince of AVales's mis- 
 tress ; and more than one father winked at 
 his son going there, from a prudent desire 
 to obtain, whilst they retained the favour 
 of tlie Ivinir, a channel of communication 
 to that of the Heir Apparent. 
 
 It was evening. The handsome suite of 
 apartments was thronged with what, by 
 courtesy, was styled the best company. 
 The rooms were as well lighted as a liberal 
 supply of wax-lights could effect that object, 
 and seemed furnished in what was then con- 
 sidered " the first style" — a style, however, 
 which a banker's Avife of the present day 
 would turn up her extremely genteel nose 
 at, for the very little evidence of taste it 
 afforded. Even the projecting Cupids that 
 supported the branches held before the mir- 
 rors, were ugly, awkward, and excessively 
 vulgar — they better fulfilled the idea of 
 sucking pugilists, than of the immortal child 
 whose beauty, grace, and refinement have 
 been represented so often by the most gifted 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 231 
 
 painters, sculptors, and poets, that have 
 ever existed. 
 
 The paintings on the walls were not in 
 much better taste. There was a legendary 
 picture of St. George, either by Paul Vero- 
 nese or Tintoretto, in which it was difficult 
 to say which had the most dragonish coun- 
 tenance — the creature that had been slain by 
 the Saint, or the Princess he had dehvered 
 from it. Venetian painters had evidently 
 as singular notions respecting the female 
 form and countenance, as the carvers of 
 looking-glass frames had of those of the God 
 of Love. It was no unusual thins: in their 
 representations, to see a Venus with a club 
 foot, or a Madonna that might readily 
 be mistaken for a Medusa. Such monstro- 
 sities were to be found in many a nobleman's 
 mansion in England. Indeed, just at that 
 period there was a general desire exhibited 
 amongst the higher classes to collect objects 
 of vertu^ as they were called. 
 
 But these were not the only libels on 
 
232 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 creation. Lady Hamilton was wise in her 
 veneration. She was not a woman of sur- 
 passing loveliness, but she sagaciously chose 
 to be fascinating by comparison, and there- 
 fore her China shepherdesses, quite as much 
 as her pictorial deities, appeared to be as 
 ugly as art could make them. Thus sur- 
 rounded, it may readily be conceived that her 
 ladyship appeared to very great advantage. 
 
 Near the door of the principal drawing- 
 room, a group of young men stood, very 
 busily employed in the operation of quizzing 
 the company. Now quizzing is a very 
 scientific process, and requires no slight 
 talent to proceed with it in the proper for- 
 mula. We see no tiling extraordinary in the 
 great popularity it has always enjoyed. It 
 must be popular, because it is cheap — the 
 amusement it aflPords us being always at the 
 expense of other people. 
 
 " I say, Charley," said the handsome 
 Captain Conway to one of his companions, 
 a dashing young fellow of his own age, who 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 233 
 
 shortly afterwards, as the well-known Charles 
 Townshend, made a name in society which 
 threatened to eclipse the reputation of even 
 his most brilliant contemporaries, " what is 
 Bubb Doddington doing up in that comer 
 mth the Prince? He seems mighty confi- 
 dential." 
 
 *' Oh !" said the youthful wit, very readily, 
 " Bubby, you must know, has made up his 
 mind to be a peer of the realm. He has no 
 chance with the King, so he has fastened him- 
 self on the Heir Apparent ; and his dreams 
 by night, and his thoughts by day, are 
 devoted to the consideration of the title that 
 is most desirable he should adopt, for he 
 has already got the Prince's promise to en- 
 noble him." 
 
 *' That 's easier said than done," remarked 
 Sir Charles Hanbury Williams ; "till figs 
 are found on thorns, and grapes on thistles, 
 it is a little too much to expect that any one 
 can perform such an hnpossibility as to en- 
 noble Bubby." 
 
234 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 '' It 's well kno^vii Bubl^y's father was an 
 apothecary," continued Charles Townshend, 
 " so I think we had better suggest to him 
 the title of Baron Gallipot." 
 
 "Let him have a double title to correspond 
 with his double face," said Selwyn, turning 
 up the whites of his drowsy eyes, " he might 
 then bear the appropriate name of Viscount 
 Pestle and Mortar." 
 
 " But then he '11 want a coat of arms," ob- 
 served Horace Walpole, who formed one of 
 the group. 
 
 '' Oh, that 's easily found," replied Charles 
 Townshend, "three draughts sable, on a field 
 vert, quarterly." 
 
 " Very green, indeed," exclaimed Henry 
 Conway. 
 
 " The three draughts ought to be daily, 
 instead of quarterly," said Selwyn, "I 'm sure 
 no doctor would let me off for less." 
 
 " Three draughts sable, on a field vert, in 
 the first and third quarters," repeated the 
 other, " with two leeches proper, in a bordure 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 235 
 
 for tlie others. In an escutcheon of pretence, 
 ia squirt rampant." 
 
 " But then he must have supporters," ob- 
 served the Captain. 
 
 " Oh, for supporters, we '11 give him an 
 old woman regardant, armed with a rushlight 
 in her dexter hand, on the sinister side; 
 and on the dexter, an undertaker couchant, 
 bearing a coffin of his own colours." 
 
 " And for the crest?" inquired Horace, 
 laughing as much as the rest. 
 
 "A death's head and cross bones, of 
 course." 
 
 " Now you 've forgot the motto." 
 
 " Oh, that suggests itself. It should be 
 in a label — not attached to the draught ; that 
 would be more medicinal than heraldic — but 
 in a scroll under the armorial bearings, 
 and should be in Old English characters — 
 ^®Kficn taHm to ht intll isfxaitm/" 
 
 It was well that Bubb Doddington was 
 too intently occupied in detailing to Prince 
 Frederick the result of his interview with 
 
236 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 Lord Townshend, to notice this mischievous 
 group, or he might have suspected himself 
 to be the subject of their conversation, from 
 the expressive looks they were directing to- 
 wards him. Had he been near enough to 
 hear the liberty they were taking with his 
 foible, the embryo nobleman would have felt 
 overwhehned with mortification. 
 
 " Lady Archie is looking very earnestly 
 towards you, Horace," exclaimed Sir Charles; 
 " if you have a mind to enter the lists with 
 a Prince of the Blood, I think there 's an 
 opening for you." 
 
 " r faith you may say that very safely," 
 said Charles Townshend, " but the opening 
 is by no means so exclusive as you would 
 infer. It 's a kind of breach practicable for 
 either horse or foot." 
 
 " I am in doubt whether I shall take 
 advantage of it," replied Horace Walpole, 
 " even should it be as inviting as you de- 
 scribe. I am not sure I have sufficient cou- 
 rage to volunteer on so dangerous a service." 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 237 
 
 " ^lio is that tall anatomy of a man witli 
 whom she is now engaged in conversation?" 
 inquired Captain Conway. 
 
 " Oh, that 's General Pipeclay ; a highly 
 meritorious officer, who, as you may judge 
 from his height, has been long in the service," 
 replied George Selw}'n, in his drowsiest 
 manner. " I don't think it possible, however 
 much he may be in battle henceforth, that 
 he should ever receive so much as a flesh 
 wound, — as it is obvious enough he has no 
 flesh to receive it in. He is a hero, not in 
 miniature, but in skeleton. I never look at 
 the General, when I find him in such close 
 confabulation with our hostess, without 
 fancying I am gazing upon a couple of un- 
 couth figures that have walked out of some 
 old Dutch print of ' Death and the Lady.'" 
 This was an amazing eflbrt for Sel^'}Ti, and 
 he again sank into his customary torpor. 
 
 " By Jove, there is Lady Caroline Peter- 
 sham! " cried Sir Charles, directing the 
 attention of the rest to a ver}^ pi'etty, and 
 
238 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 evidently very fashionaLle woman, who had 
 just then entered the dra^ving room; " Our 
 friend Lady Archie has not, I fancy, shewn 
 her usual prudence in inviting so attractive 
 a rival." 
 
 '' Well, if she has shewn her usual im- 
 prudence, there can be no doubt she has 
 shewn quite enough," drawled George 
 Selwyn. 
 
 " What next, I wonder ! " cried young 
 Townshend, as he caught sight of the well- 
 known figure of Lord Bolingbroke making 
 his way through the well-dressed crowd, with 
 a most liberal display of courteous recogni- 
 tions to all around, apparently to join the 
 group about the Prince. 
 
 "AATiat next? " echoed Hanbury Williams. 
 " What could you expect after such a Dr. 
 Faustus, but his instructor? " 
 
 '^ Qh, as to that, I have very great doubts," 
 ol^served Captain Conway, " I have a might}* 
 shrewd suspicion he 's not the Doctor, be- 
 cause — " 
 
STRAAYBERKY HILL. 239 
 
 *' You never took him to be such a con- 
 juror," said Charles Townshend, hastily. 
 
 " Not exactly," replied the young Captain, 
 " But I think he 's so de\dlish deep, he must 
 be — you understand — the other personage." 
 
 '' Tlie Devil he is ! " exclaimed George 
 Selwyn, ^vith a ludicrous emphasis that 
 created a general laugh, as he appeared to 
 rouse himself out of a dream. 
 
 Horace Walpole gazed vdi\\ a gi^eat deal 
 of interest upon that clever intriguer, whom, 
 from certain information that had lately 
 reached him, he had learned to reo^ard as 
 his father's bitterest enemy ; and as he looked 
 upon him, a sense of dislike amounting to 
 hostility took possession of his whole nature. 
 It seemed to have become a part of his reli- 
 gion, that his father's enemy should be his 
 own ; and that the first article of his faith 
 was, To like those who liked him, and hate 
 those who hated him. 
 
 " Come, Horace, what makes you stare 
 so at BoUngbroke?" said Captain Conway, 
 
240 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 drawing his friend a little way from the 
 group, " You 've not paid so much atten- 
 tion to mv nonsense, as to marvel what the 
 old gentleman has done with a certain 
 appendage with which it is believed he inva- 
 riably goes into company? Come, that 's 
 Pulteney he 's talking to — you '11 attract 
 attention if you stare at him so rudely." 
 
 Pulteney ! — another of those whom he had 
 so lately learned to hold in the most absolute 
 detestation. Another enemy of Sir Robert 
 Walpole, and one almost as formidable as 
 Lord Bolingbroke. He wished to linger and 
 observe them both, that he might have every 
 feature so thoroughly impressed upon his 
 memory, he could recal the image whenever 
 he desired to gratify his hatred at its expense. 
 But his kinsman hurried him away, and took 
 oiF his attention by talking of himself and 
 his OAvn prospects. He had been promised 
 promotion, was appointed aide-de-camp to 
 the Duke of Cumberland, and expected to be 
 summoned to join his regiment to embark 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 241 
 
 for the seat of war. Some hard fi^^htinsr, he 
 said, might be expected, from the temper and 
 preparations of the hostile armies, and, as 
 he meant to distinguish himself, it would 
 not be at all improbable that he should get 
 knocked on the head, or at least lose a limb. 
 '' But then you know, Horace, my boy," 
 exclaimed the young soldier, in his most 
 consolatory tone, "if the worst comes to 
 the worst, there 's satisfaction in knowing 
 there 's no worst to endure after it : and I 
 shall die in the bed of Honour — which is, of 
 course, the most desirable death a soldier 
 could meet with. A^Tiat the deuce else I 
 could ^^'ish for, I don't know! And then 
 you know, supposing I get oiF with only 
 the loss of a limb — which will be a sin- 
 ocular instance of f^rood fortune — there can't 
 be a doubt that a wooden leg costs a deal 
 less money to provide for than a natural 
 one : should my loss be an arm — if I can do 
 nothing else with my empty sleeve, I can 
 laugh in it. You see, as I am constantly 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
242 STRA^VBERRY BUX, 
 
 telling }'oii, I always look at the bright side 
 of things." 
 
 Here the curious argument was inter- 
 rupted by a female voice, from a lady who 
 had approached them unobserved. 
 
 '' I have been waiting a monstrous time, 
 Captain Conway, for you to introduce your 
 friend." 
 
 '' Oh, a thousand pardons, Lady Archi- 
 bald," cried the gallant Captain, eagerly; 
 '"'' By Jove, we were just talking of you. 
 T.ady Archibald — my friend Horace Wal- 
 pole; Horace — Lady Archibald Hamilton." 
 
 The lady went through the ceremony 
 in her most fascinating manner, — and, to 
 do her justice, she could appear a very 
 charming woman. The gentleman sought 
 to prepossess the lady in his favour ; and his 
 appearance was so very much in his favour, 
 that, with such a connoisseur of what was 
 orentleman-like as he had before him, he was 
 sure of making more than ordinary impres- 
 sion. Thev regarded each other with much 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 243 
 
 more attention than strangers usually dis- 
 play on meeting for the first time ; but then 
 Horace Walpole knew that he stood before 
 one of the most powerful agents of the 
 strong party then in violent opposition to 
 liis father. She was on the list of those 
 he felt especially called upon to hate. 
 
 Lady Archibald knew that she was in 
 the presence of a son of the man whose 
 influence, her friends averred, was most 
 prejudicial to her interests as a politician: 
 thereibre, she must look upon him as no 
 common personage. Lady Archibald also 
 saw that the young stranger had a pleasing 
 manner, and possessed a pair of eyes that 
 seemed to promise a devout worshipper. 
 As a woman of gallantry, she could not 
 avoid refrardino; him with more than usual 
 attention. 
 
 " I haven't a doubt you '11 like each other 
 desperately on better acquaintance," conti- 
 nued the young officer, as the parties he 
 had made known to each other were ex- 
 
 M 2 
 
244 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 pressing tlie customary civilities, *' it 's 
 against orders from Head Quarters, per- 
 liaps, to make you acquainted; but then 
 I don't suppose Horace will join your Lady- 
 ship's forces: and, monstrous agreeable as 
 I have always found your Ladyship, I have 
 my doubts you could fascinate him so com- 
 pletely, as to make him forget his allegiance 
 to his o^vn banner." 
 
 A good deal of amusing badinage fol- 
 lowed on this subject, in which Lady Ha- 
 milton contrived to express many things 
 that ought to have been gratifying to any 
 young gentleman ^\ith a disposition for gal- 
 lantry, and in which Horace Walpole did not 
 foro-et to commend himself, bv the utterance 
 of such agreeable sentiments as are the cus- 
 tomar}^ coin of conversation during an early 
 acquaintance between well-bred individuals 
 of the two sexes. 
 
 It was extremely singular that these two 
 persons, who, from their peculiar positions, 
 ought to have been irreconcileable foes, im- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 245 
 
 pressed on each other sentiments, which, if 
 they might not be styled favourable, were 
 of such a nature as to render it as great 
 an injustice to call it unfavourable. 
 
 The son of the Prime Minister thought 
 he had never before seen eyes so truly elo- 
 quent — they seemed gifted mth the faculty, 
 as fine 'svriters call it, " of peering into the 
 soul : " and he observed with the same plea- 
 sure, a peculiar modulation of the voice that 
 appeared to be as full of meaning as of music. 
 The mistress of the Heir Apparent acknow- 
 ledged that she had never come in contact 
 with a mind apparently so fresh, so full of 
 resources, and so refined. She pretended to 
 cultivate a taste for the elegant and classical 
 — a taste, however, which she found very 
 few opportunities for encouraging in the 
 inelegant and unclassical society it had been 
 her misfortune that her lot should be cast. 
 
 The friends of Horace Walpole mars^elled 
 immensely when they beheld Lady Archi- 
 bald Hamilton, after they had interchanged 
 
24:Q STllAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 compliments, take the young Members arm: 
 and, as the company made Avay on all sides, 
 with every symptom of outward respect, 
 lie was seen, with all the appearance of the 
 most devoted cavalier, proceeding with her 
 to the further end of the room. 
 
 " Lady Hamilton must surely be a very 
 estimable person," observed her cavalier, 
 with the most gallant air he could as- 
 sume. 
 
 " You think so from seeing so many people 
 here," replied the lady laughingly ; ''but de- 
 pend on 't, it 's only a new version of the 
 old fable of the Hare and many Friends." 
 
 " Why, I have been led to suppose that 
 the Ilei?' has something to do with it," re- 
 marked her companion, hazarding an allu- 
 sion to her ladyship's connection "vvith the 
 Prince of Wales. The lady laughed una- 
 bashed, and as if she was extremely amused 
 with the idea. 
 
 " Mighty good. Sir, mighty good ! " she 
 exclaimed, " and vou are not far wroni]f. I 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 247 
 
 believe I am in a great measure indebted 
 to his Royal Highness for the popularity I 
 enjoy; " and then she added in a more con- 
 fidential tone, '' An obligation, by the way, 
 which I have incurred solely from the agree- 
 able prospect it holds out to me of being 
 able to serve the deserving. I believe I 
 have a great deal of influence in that quarter ; 
 but I must confess it 's monstrous dull work 
 endeavouring]: to make such an uninteresting; 
 mortal take the interest he ought, in what 
 should most command it." 
 
 Here the lady sighed, as if she felt her 
 position to be anything but satisfactory, or 
 else as if to intimate that she had feelings 
 that were not to be controlled by her ambi- 
 tion. 
 
 '* Assuredly you may lay claim to the 
 happiness of boasting amongst your admirers 
 the many distinguished men I observe around 
 you," said Horace Walpole. 
 
 "" I make no claim to happiness, and I 
 never boast," replied Lady Hamilton, in a 
 
248 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 tone of voice that might be called pathetic ; 
 "and as for my numerous admirers, as you 
 are pleased to call them, they are summer 
 flies swarming to the honey-pot. They know 
 well enough that I am not the honey, but 
 the worthless vessel that contains it. I care 
 not for such admirers, you may depend. 
 One honest heart is worth whole hecatombs 
 of such time-servers." 
 
 The lady again sighed. Her young cava- 
 lier ou^rht to have been satisfied that his fair 
 companion was an object that commanded 
 his best sympatliies. He certainly was very 
 voung, and rather inexperienced in the 
 world ; but he felt he had too much at stake 
 to allow a diversion of his feelings from 
 what he considered was their legitimate ob- 
 ject. If Lady Archibald Hamilton was an 
 enemy of his father's, it was obvious she 
 must be an enemy of his. At any rate, he 
 should ever regard her with hostility. 
 
 These reflections were interrupted by their 
 reaching the group about the Prince of 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 249 
 
 AVales, that immediately made way, as the 
 favourite and her companion approached. 
 She whispered that she was about to intro- 
 duce him, and that he was to be sure and 
 exercise his own sagacity in observing whe- 
 ther such an individual, exalted though he 
 might be, could satisfy the heart of a woman 
 possessed of any sensibility. 
 
 Horace Walpole was at first a little sur- 
 prised at the cordiality of his reception. If 
 he had been the most influential of his sup- 
 porters, instead of the son of liis most pow- 
 erful opponent, the Prince could not have 
 exhibited greater kindness of manner towards 
 him. An mdifferent observer, seeing the 
 affectionate interest he displayed so win- 
 ningly to the young Member, might have 
 been induced to set him do^vn as one of the 
 most amiable of men. But such amiability, 
 unfortunately, too often forms the bulk of 
 the stock in trade of the hidi and mi^rhtv. 
 Ci^dlity is a cheap virtue, which, if it 
 becomes a pedlar, must still more become a 
 
 m3 
 
250 STRAWBERKY HILL. 
 
 prince. To smile, and make complimentary 
 speeches to their inferiors, form by far the 
 greater part of " The Whole Duty," not of 
 man, but of the great man. Pity it is that 
 appearances are so deceitful, — that, like the 
 soap-bubble, it has such a very charming 
 eifect, but — there is nothing in it. A great 
 man condescends to make himself as agree- 
 able as possible to a little one, as mecha- 
 nically as he washes his face to become as 
 agreeable as possil)le to himself. The little 
 man departs, and vnih him vanishes all in- 
 terest in his concerns, as completely as if he 
 had never existed. 
 
 Prince Frederick questioned our hero con- 
 cerning his travels, and what he had observed, 
 and appeared to be extremely delighted with 
 the accounts he elicited respecting the great 
 cities of Italy, and their works of art. 
 Young Walpole was something of an enthu- 
 siast in art, and could not avoid, whilst upon 
 tlie subject, displaying, not only what he 
 knew, but what he felt. The speaker shortly 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 251 
 
 found himself the centre of an admiring 
 group of listeners, prominent amongst whom 
 were Pulteney, Marchmont, Bubb Dodding- 
 ton, Lord Bolingbroke, Shippen, Lord Car- 
 taret, and Sandys. 
 
 Presently the conversation became general ; 
 and if a moment since he felt any surprise 
 at being an object of attention to a circle 
 composed of his father's bitterest enemies, 
 his astonishment was most profound when 
 he remarked that they all treated him with as 
 much appearance of personal esteem as if he 
 were an attached friend of some twenty years' 
 standing. 
 
 The Minister's son had an abundant field 
 on which to employ his powers of observa- 
 tion, but of course the chief object in it was 
 the Heir Apparent, and towards him he di- 
 rected the principal share of his attention. 
 The manners of his Eoyal Highness were 
 certainly extremely conciliatory, but this did 
 not prevent the observ^er from discovering 
 that his mind was very shallow, and as little 
 
252 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 benefited by education as any intellect in his 
 father's dominions. 
 
 The Prince shortly afterwards proceeded 
 to play at loliisk^ having Lady Archibald for 
 a partner, against Bubb Doddington and 
 Lord Bolingbroke ; and as, in the excitement 
 of play, he became less on his guard, the 
 same shrewd observer could not fail of de- 
 tecting a certain looseness of principle, and 
 an apparent absence of all high or honour- 
 able sentiment, that as ill became his rank, 
 as his cordiality became it well. 
 
 The conduct of the philosopher of Dawley 
 towards the son of his hated rival, formed a 
 fine study for the student of human nature. 
 The Prince chose to retain his new acquaint- 
 ance near him ; a position by no means dis- 
 agreeable to that young gentleman, as it 
 enabled him to receive all the little conde- 
 scensions of his Royal Highness, as well as 
 all the greatly expressive glances of his Royal 
 Highness's mistress. 
 
 Bolingbroke took advantage of every op- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 253 
 
 portunity of ingratiating himself with young 
 Walpole. In the pauses of the game, when 
 the deal was going on, he was almost sure 
 to address him, or express some observation 
 which could only be intended for his ear. 
 And what he said seemed so very much to 
 the purpose, so profound or so brilHant, so 
 philanthropic or so just, that it could not 
 fail of its due effect on a well educated mind. 
 A stranger, with his intelligence untouched 
 by any opposing influences, must have felt 
 singularly prejudiced in favour of so admir- 
 able a converser ; but Horace Walpole never 
 lost sight of the conviction that he was in 
 the presence of his father's bitterest enemies, 
 and consequently all their fascinations were 
 unavaiHng. 
 
 Bubb Doddington, too, was equally intent 
 on making himself agreeable; but unfortu- 
 nately for him, in the society of such a spirit 
 as that of Bolingbroke, his qualities, what- 
 ever they were, could not come forth so 
 prominently as he wished. With all the 
 
254 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 desire in the world to take a leading part, 
 he not only found himself obliged to play 
 second fiddle, but forced to play in so very 
 subdued and modest a manner, that his per- 
 formance, he had reason to fear, would go 
 for little or nothing — much too just an ap- 
 preciation to be satisfactory. 
 
 Whether it was in consequence of the 
 Prince mnning the odd trick — an extra- 
 ordinary triumph, considering he had such 
 an experienced trickster as Bolingbroke for 
 an opponent — or from his Eoyal Highness 
 not having expended his stock of civility, 
 certain it is, at the conclusion of the game, 
 the Minister's younger son was again an ob- 
 ject of friendly attention to the Heir Apparent. 
 He rose from the card-table, and putting his 
 arm familiarly within that of his young 
 acquaintance, led him a little apart from the 
 group. 
 
 Possibly the reader supposes Prince Fre- 
 derick took that opportunity for confiden- 
 tially hinting to the member for Callington 
 
STRAAVBEKPtY HILL. 255 
 
 his Royal Highness's wishes respecting his 
 political conduct, and held out some im- 
 portant inducement to lead him into con- 
 necting himself with the Prince's party. 
 It is possible that Horace Walpole anticipated 
 this. If he did so, never was man more 
 completely disappointed. His Royal High- 
 ness led him out of earshot of his friends, 
 and then with an air of profound confidence, 
 and in a subdued whisper expressive of the 
 intense interest he felt in the subject, he 
 said, " Between you and I, Mr. Walpole, my 
 Lord Bolin^broke did wrono^, in that last 
 trick but one, in playing the knave." 
 
 ^' I quite agree with your Royal High- 
 ness," replied the Minister's son, in the same 
 earnest tone and manner, "my Lord Boling- 
 broke should never have played the knave.''' 
 
256 STRAWBEREY HILL. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 BUBB DODDINGTON. 
 
 The political horizon gave evidence of a 
 storm brewing, that threatened to burst 
 over the head of Sir Robert Walpole; and 
 the quick-sighted affection of his younger 
 son had already acquired sufficient know- 
 ledge of the atmosphere around him, to be 
 aware of the tendency of the gathering 
 clouds. But though his own observations 
 assured him that miscliief was impending, 
 and the same conviction followed from the 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 257 
 
 investigations of his shrewd and useful de- 
 pendent in a less direct channel, the saga, 
 city of both was at fault when they sought 
 to discover the exact shape in which this 
 mischief was to disclose itself. 
 
 Horace Walpole expended much anxious 
 thou^rht in endeavouring^ to arrive at the 
 secret the hostile party preserved so tena- 
 ciously. There could be no doubt that the 
 clever and crafty Bolingbroke was the main- 
 spring of this mysterious movement. It 
 suited well his political engineering — this 
 working in the dark. It was e^ddent he 
 was digging a mine, the object of which 
 was to overthrow the administration of his 
 rival by a sudden and overwhelmmg explo- 
 sion. To keep Sir Robert in ignorance of 
 its existence, was of the first importance 
 to its success — hence the care with which 
 the operations were masked from his obser- 
 vation. 
 
 The son of the Minister thought of ap- 
 plvin^^r to Ladv Archibald Hamilton for the 
 
258 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 information he sought ; but a moment's 
 reflection satisfied him that their acquaint- 
 ance was much too recent to allow of his 
 hazarding a confession of his decided par- 
 tiality for his father, to so zealous a Tory 
 partizan as Prince Frederick's mistress. 
 For notwithstanding the hints she had 
 dropped of her position being irksome to 
 her feelings, his were too strongly preju- 
 diced against her as one of his father's 
 enemies, to allow them to influence him; 
 though he was fully sensible of the advan- 
 tage he might gain by keeping on a good 
 understanding with her. 
 
 The active and agreeable Fibbs had con- 
 trived to make the acquaintance of more 
 than one of those extensive depositaries of 
 family secrets — housekeepers and ladies' 
 maids — to whom his vivacity, good looks, 
 foreign phrases, and travelled manners, were 
 overpowering recommendations ; but the 
 information he had elicited was so vague 
 and uncertain, that nothing could be made 
 of it. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 259 
 
 He had given them to understand, in 
 confidence, how monstrous tired he was of 
 the Walpoles — how completely his opinions 
 were at variance with the fusty notions of 
 the present Government — and had even led 
 them to believe that his young master was 
 as tired of them as himself; but though he 
 found no difficulty in making himself agree- 
 able, he could not obtain the information 
 of which he was in quest : in his search for 
 the secret, there was an impediment in his 
 way, upon which, with all his shrewdness, 
 he had not calculated — it so happened, 
 his fair companions did not know it them- 
 selves. 
 
 Horace Walpole was engaged in a par- 
 ticularly brown study, seated in a capacious 
 arm-chair, in the well-supplied library in 
 Arlington-street, when he was surprised by 
 the servant suddenly announcing Mr. Bubb 
 Doddington. In a moment afterwards Mr. 
 Bubb Doddino-ton, overflowinf>: as it were 
 with mingled suavity and importance, en- 
 
260 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 tered the apiirtinent. The Minister's son was 
 at a loss for the motive of such a visit, as, 
 though he recollected that the sleek, placid, 
 self-conceited countenance, now advancing 
 so cordially towards him, had come under 
 his observation at the Prince's card-table, he 
 recollected, also, that so little communica- 
 tion had passed between himself and that 
 fjentleman, that a visit from him the next 
 morning was the last tiling he should have 
 anticipated. 
 
 At that moment, however, a reminiscence 
 of the ridiculous coat of arms which the 
 most brilliant of the To^vnshends had found 
 for this nobleman expectant, caused such a 
 smile to light up the young Member's fea- 
 tures, that Mr. Doddington felt he had no 
 reason to complain of his reception. 
 
 Notwithstanding, however, the happy self- 
 satisfied look of his visitor, there was a cer- 
 tain uneasy expression about his sleepy eyes 
 which would have convinced a Lavater that 
 the particular friend of the Heir Apparent, 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 261 
 
 and the peer of the reahii that was to be, 
 was not quite contented with his present 
 circumstances. 
 
 Whilst this ambitious courtier was paying 
 his compliments, and expressing a host of 
 apologies for his intrusion, his companion 
 was speculating on the object of his visit; 
 and he soon determined in his mind that the 
 gentleman had come as an ambassador from 
 the Prince, to propose some friendly arrange- 
 ment arising out of the decided impression 
 he had produced on his Royal Highness the 
 previous evening. 
 
 It is almost needless to say, the speculator 
 was very much in the wrong. The impres- 
 sion he flattered himself he had produced 
 was too transient to afford the Prince a 
 single after-thought upon the subject. Mr. 
 Bubb Doddington was his ovm ambassador. 
 To be sure, he was the confidential friend of 
 the Heir Apparent, to whom he had the 
 honour of lending his money and losing his 
 money according as the whim of his Royal 
 
262 STKAWBEKKr HILL. 
 
 Highness lay in the way of borrowing or of 
 winning. But great as were these honours, 
 they did not quite satisfy the ambition of the 
 apothecary's son. He knew the Prince of 
 Wales could promise — but he Avas quite as 
 Avell aware the King could perform; and 
 his gratification in being the companion of a 
 Prince, and his desire to stand well with the 
 Sovereign, often kept him oscillating like a 
 pendulum, in the direction in which he 
 fancied his interests predominated. 
 
 On the previous evening, after Prince 
 Frederick had got rid of all his company, he 
 entered into a long explanation of his in- 
 tentions to his good-natured friend whose 
 ])urse had been so convenient to him, in 
 which he alarmed that oscillatory courtier 
 prodigiously. It was evident to him that 
 the Opposition were pushing the Prince for- 
 ward to take up a position against his father, 
 which could not but greatly embarrass those 
 of his friends who sought to keep up a good 
 understanding with the existing Ministry. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 2G3 
 
 Boliiigbroke had infused into the shallow 
 mind of the Heir Apparent so iierce an 
 hostility to his father's ablest ]ylinister, that 
 lie was determined to do every thing in his 
 power to drive him from the Government; 
 and with this object in view, his Royal High- 
 ness was about to make a political demon- 
 stration supported by the whole power of 
 the Tory party, strengthened by recruits 
 from amongst the Minister's almost in- 
 numerable enemies. The timid time-server 
 became alarmed. To take the part in this 
 rash movement the Prince required him to 
 do, appeared so full of peril to his own in- 
 terests, that after a faint remonstrance, he 
 thought it most advisable to provide for his 
 own safety by opening communications with 
 the Prime Minister, in which he purposed 
 making favourable terms for himself by be- 
 traying the intentions of his master. 
 
 Horace Walpole listened with the most 
 intense interest to the details of the grand 
 plot his extremely friendly acquaintance of 
 
264 STRAWBERKY HILL. 
 
 the previous evening unfolded to him. The 
 secret that had baffled him was at once in 
 liis power. The storm that was brewing 
 over the head of Sir Robert Walpole betrayed 
 the pkice where it was to break out. The 
 Minister's son was careful not to lose an 
 atom of this valuable information. *' Fore- 
 warned is fore-armed." He knew the value 
 of the proverb, and was fidly resolved to 
 prove its truth with as much dispatch as 
 was practicable. 
 
 But the great attention he gave to the 
 particulars that were being narrated to him 
 by no means blinded him to the peculiarities 
 and deficiencies of the narrator. The extreme 
 candour, the excessive disinterestedness, the 
 wonderful self-denial, of the Prince's very 
 particular friend, in this timely communica- 
 tion to the son of the Minister, vv'ere not lost 
 upon him. 
 
 '' Then, if I understand you right," said 
 Horace Walpole, particularly anxious that 
 nothing should be misunderstood, " it is the 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 265 
 
 intention of the Prince of Wales to make a 
 demand in Parliament for a jointure for the 
 Princess, and £100,000 per annum for him- 
 self." 
 
 ^' Just so, my dear Sir, just so." 
 " And this, not only without the sanction 
 of the father of his Royal Highness, but in 
 as unquestionable a shape as possible, putting 
 himself forward in opposition to his wishes, 
 and in defiance of his authority ? " 
 " That is the exact state of the case." 
 " And in this independent, or it might 
 be called hostile movement, I am to under- 
 stand that his Royal Highness counts on 
 the support, not only of the Opposition party, 
 but of several distinguished AMiigs." 
 
 " Just what I said. Moreover, his Royal 
 Highness, on my representing the risk he 
 was running, and the very remote chance he 
 had of success, stated his mind was made 
 up, and that he counted on the assistance 
 of the Dukes of Argyle and Dorset, and 
 Lord Wilmington; and that Mr.. Pulteney, 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
\ 
 
 266 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 Lord Carteret, Lord Chesterfield, and Sir 
 AVilliam Wyndham, were monstrous eager 
 in the affair. His Royal Highness further 
 stated that Lord Winchelsea had gone down 
 to Petworth to bring the old Duke of 
 Somerset to move the measure in the House 
 of Lords, and that Mr. Sandys, Mr. Gibbon, 
 or Sir John Barnard the financier, were 
 likely to move the measure in the House of 
 Commons." 
 
 This seemed a formidable enough confede- 
 racy ; and the son of the man against whom 
 it was directed, may be excused feeling more 
 than a common interest in listening to the 
 particulars. 
 
 '' Surely," he said, " His Royal Highness 
 must feel this daring hostility to his father 
 to be exceedingly improper?" 
 
 " My dear Sir," replied the courtier with 
 more than a courtier's suavity, " I represented 
 to His Royal Highness — in fact I felt bound 
 to do so, in consequence of the vast respect 
 I have always entertained for his Majesty — 
 
STRA^^^ERRY HILL. 2G7 
 
 the false position in which he was placing 
 himself by this public exhibition of uniilial 
 feeling — and reminded him of the delicate 
 state of his father's health." 
 
 '' AVhich had its due weight with him, of 
 course?" 
 
 " His Royal Highness was so good as to 
 say," added the courtier, "that the King 
 could not live many years, but might linger 
 thus a good wliile ; and he could not stay 
 that while." 
 
 Horace Walpole did not make any remark 
 at this startling exposition of royal affection, 
 but it produced a strong impression on his 
 mind. He presently made inquiries as to 
 the feelings entertained towards this bold 
 measure by the Prince's friends ; and he suc- 
 ceeded in ascertaining that the desire of his 
 Royal Highness to proceed to extremities 
 mth the King, even though a civil war were 
 the consequence, had alarmed many quite 
 as much as it had frio^htened Mr. Doddinorton 
 — several drew back, not a few stood aloof, 
 
 N 2 
 
268 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 and some of the wiser heads had ventured 
 upon a remonstrance. 
 
 The worthy aspirant for a peerage said a 
 great deal more respecting his own honour 
 and conscience, and ended his confidential 
 communication with a well-expressed hint, 
 that it was in the power of his estimable 
 friend, Sir Robert Walpole, always to com- 
 mand his best services in any affair that did 
 not affect his principles. He then took his 
 leave with an abundance of pretty compli- 
 ments and encouraging prophecies to the very 
 promising son of his estimable friend, who 
 felt happier by a great deal than he had 
 been for years, when he saw his visitor fairly 
 out of the house. 
 
 "Quick, Fibbs, quick! 'A chair to the 
 Treasury," he exclaimed, hurriedly, as his 
 valet answered his startling summons at the 
 bell, " I have not a moment to lose : tell the 
 fellows to carry me along as rapidly as 
 they can put their feet to the ground." 
 
 A very short time — though to his impa- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 269 
 
 tient spirit it seemed an hour — sufficed 
 to see him l^orne in a sedan, by a couple of 
 stalwart Irishmen, in the direction of his 
 father's official residence. The bearers had 
 been well talked to by the valet, and well 
 feed by the master, therefore it is but reason- 
 able to imagine they did not allow the grass 
 to grow under their feet — if any they found 
 there — as they jogged along with their bur- 
 then. He passed the interval in recalling 
 the particulars of the important statement 
 he had just heard; and when he felt satisfied 
 he had not forofotten the least item in the ac- 
 count, a glow of intense satisfaction suffused 
 his whole system, as he reflected on the vast 
 service he was about to do to his father. 
 
 That father, whose character he so revered 
 — whose talents he looked upon with such 
 enthusiastic admiration — whose position as 
 the first Englishman of his age, seemed, to 
 his excited fancy, higher than that of either 
 King or Keyser — that father, he was about 
 to save from the most imminent danger with 
 
270 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 which his power had ever been threatened ; 
 for he knew the energy of that great 
 mind, and the extent of its resources, too 
 well, to doubt that, with so timely a know- 
 ledge of the conspiracy that the wily Boling- 
 broke had so skilfully formed, he would find 
 any difficulty in defeating it. 
 
 Arrived at Whitehall, our hero learned 
 with dismay that Sir Eobert was engaged 
 giving an audience to the French Ambas- 
 sador, and could not be disturbed on any 
 account. His son knew full well that every 
 minute lost was an advantage to the enemy. 
 His impatience, his excitement, his anxiety, 
 became extreme, as he heard the quarters 
 strike one after another by the time-piece in 
 the waiting-room. He made several ineffec- 
 tual efforts to induce one of the messengers 
 to disturb his father, but they shook their 
 heads with a look of alarm, as if the invita- 
 tion was suggestive of nothing less than a 
 prosecution for High Treason. 
 
 Horace execrated the iron rules of official 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 271 
 
 etiquette most heartily, as he paced the 
 empty room with impatient strides and a 
 beatino: heart ; and then he cursed the Am- 
 bassador, for taking up his father's time at 
 so critical a period of his fortunes. But his 
 intemperance was of no more good in expe- 
 diting the departure of the one, than had 
 been his anxiety for the other's welfare. 
 
 Time still continued to pass on, and the 
 cursed Ambassador stiU continued to linger. 
 In a fit of desperation, Horace was just 
 about to burst upon the diplomatists, when 
 he heard a little bell ring, which his quick 
 ear recognised as the usual announcement 
 of the Minister when dismissing a visitor; 
 and he flung himself into a chair, waiting 
 his own summons, and striving at the same 
 time to still the eager throbbing of his 
 heart. 
 
 He waited several minutes, but no sum- 
 mons came. The Ambassador was gone, he 
 was certain — his father must be alone — he 
 must see him. He dashed at once into the 
 
272 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 adjoining room, and once more demanded 
 of the plodding secretaries why Sir Robert 
 had not been made aware that he had been 
 waiting an hour to see him on most impor- 
 tant business. He was quietly told that 
 the Minister had had immediate notice of 
 his son's visit, on the departure of the Am- 
 bassador, and had replied that he could not 
 be disturbed, as he had a despatch to write 
 of the utmost importance. 
 
 Horace was in an agony. All the bodily 
 sufFerino: he had endured throughout the 
 course of his life, could not have amounted 
 to the intense distress he felt on hearing 
 this conamunication. 
 
 " I must implore you to go again to him," 
 said he at last, " it is a matter of the great- 
 est urgency. Tell him the business I have 
 come upon is of vital importance. Not a 
 minute ought to be lost in making him 
 acquainted with it." 
 
 At first the gentlemen severally shook 
 their heads, in their customary official way, 
 
STRAWBEHRY HILL. 273 
 
 and continued their writing; but one — an 
 elderly man — who had long enjoyed the 
 Minister's confidence, imaginmg there was 
 somethino: in the tone and manner of the 
 young gentleman that spoke an unusual 
 errand, expressed his wilHngness to go and 
 speak again to Sir Robert. 
 
 In a few minutes Horace was summoned 
 to the presence of his father. When the 
 door opened for him he could hardly enter 
 the room, his feelings so overpowered him. 
 He saw his father sitting quietly at a table 
 covered with papers, evidently so immersed 
 in his occupation as not to have noticed his 
 entrance. Even in the intensity of his ex- 
 citement, the young Member could not avoid 
 a feeling of surprise at observing how calm, 
 how cheerful, was the Minister's counte- 
 nance. It was not the face he had seen 
 disfigured by anger, when he had so timely 
 interposed to prevent the two angry states- 
 men imbruing their hands in each other's 
 blood. It was a countenance full of sun- 
 
 n3 
 
274 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 shine — so full, indeed, that even the thought- 
 ful attention he was giving to his employ- 
 ment modified but a little the jocund ex- 
 pression that played around the mouth, 
 and lighted up the whole physiognomy. 
 
 But Horace felt, as soon as he had 
 sufficiently recovered from his agitation, 
 that the time was too precious to be em- 
 ployed even in regarding features so be- 
 loved; and he cleared his throat to begin 
 the important communication of which he 
 was the bearer. 
 
 " Sit down, Horace, and tell me what 
 you 've got to say," said the Minister, 
 without raising his eyes from the paper 
 before him. His son felt that a form of 
 address so cold, to one who had hastened, 
 with the wann impulse of filial afi*ection, 
 to rescue him from a snare in which he was 
 about to be encompassed, was anything but 
 what he had anticipated; but he gulped 
 down his feelings as hastily as he could, 
 and at once proceeded to narrate the whole 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 275 
 
 of what Mr. Bubb Doddington's fears for 
 his own interests had led him to di\nilo-e. 
 
 At first the young ]\[ember was a little 
 too excited to express himself as perspicu- 
 ously as he desired ; but as he proceeded, he 
 gained confidence and coolness. He fully 
 expected that the news of such a coalition, 
 brought together to agitate so bold an at- 
 tack, through the royal prerogative, on the 
 King's favourite ^Minister, would come upon 
 him like a bomb-shell. His astonishment 
 was extreme at perceiving that his father 
 never once lifted his pen from the paper, ex- 
 cept to dip it in his massive silver inkstand. 
 Mingled with his astonishment was no slight 
 degree of mortification. But he began at 
 last to think that the Minister was so ab- 
 sorbed in writing the important despatch, 
 that he could give no attention to his son's 
 at least equally important communication. 
 When nearly at the end of his narrative, he 
 left off speaking. 
 
 "Is that all, Horace?" immediately in- 
 
276 STRAWBErxRY HILL. 
 
 quired his father — at least proving that he 
 was not so inattentive as he had appeared. 
 
 " I am afraid, Sir, you have not been able 
 to attend to what I have been stating," 
 replied his son, somewhat dejectedly. 
 
 '' I have heard every word, Horace,'^ said 
 the Minister, looking up from his writing 
 for the first time, " but it so happens it is 
 so much attention thrown away, as I was 
 previously acquainted with every circum- 
 stance you have been so good as to com- 
 municate." 
 
 The young Member stared aghast. His 
 anxiety — his alarm — his earnest affection — 
 his heartfelt devotion, had been as fruitless 
 as they were superfluous. He felt almost 
 ashamed that he had so unnecessarily be- 
 trayed the deep interest in his father with 
 which his heart was full to overflowing. 
 
 " Your new friend, Mr. Bubb Dodding- 
 ton, is rather late in making his revelations," 
 continued the Minister, with a good-hu- 
 moured smile. " Eager as he has been to 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 277 
 
 betray his princely patron, in the hope of its 
 turning to his advantage, another has been 
 more eager still. I know every thing, and 
 am prepared for every thing. Nay, I am 
 in a condition to inform you, not only that 
 the proud old Duke of Somerset mil see 
 liis Eoyal Highness and his friends hanged 
 before he would stir a step in his favour; 
 but that the seeds of disunion have already 
 been sown among the Prince's most zealous 
 supporters. 
 
 " The fools imagine," continued the 
 Minister, "that because I have appeared 
 ignorant of their plot, their precious secrets 
 are safe. They will find out their mistake 
 when this grand motion of theirs comes 
 before Parliament. I rather suspect my 
 Lord Bolingbroke mil then require all his 
 boasted philosophy to enable him to endure 
 his disappointment, and that Prince Frede- 
 rick will discover — what I am afraid some 
 ill-natured observers have discovered already 
 — ^that he has been made a fool of." 
 
278 STRAWT3ERRY HILL. 
 
 Our hero appeared lost in wonder at 
 liis father's apparent sense of security, 
 and the quiet contempt he appeared to 
 entertain for his numerous and powerful 
 enemies. But in all this there was visible 
 only the Minister secure in his own pride 
 of power — of the father, there was not the 
 slightest trace. Had he been an utter 
 stranger to the family of Walpole, Sir Robert 
 could not have exhibited more indifference 
 to his son's presence, and less thankfulness 
 for his errand, than he had done. 
 
 Horace would have given worlds, had he 
 had them at his disposal, could he have heard 
 a few kind words in recognition of the instance 
 he had given of the strength of his filial 
 affection, or a few earnest commendations 
 of his political zeal. But in this eventful 
 moment he seemed fated to feel more acutely 
 than ever the insignificance of his position 
 as a younger son. 
 
 He rose to take leave. " Yes," said the 
 Minister, quietly resuming his occupation. 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 279 
 
 '' I am too busy to afford you any further 
 attention. This despatch must be sent off 
 immediately." 
 
 As he hurried out of the apartment, our 
 hero asked himself, " Is there no way of 
 thawing the ice of this man's nature ? Will 
 no act of devotion in his son awaken him to 
 the consciousness of being a parent, and 
 impel him to shew a proper sympathy for 
 his offspring?" 
 
 One proof of the intensity of his interest 
 in his father's welfare he had just given — 
 this the urgency of the case had made him 
 bring under the Minister's observation : an- 
 other proof had been given ; but this — and he 
 congratulated himself on the tenacity with 
 which he had held the secret — he had hitherto 
 concealed from his father's knowledge. 
 
 He had sacrificed the most absorbing pas- 
 sion that ever thrilled the heart of man, 
 on the altar of filial affection. He had 
 offered up one of the loveliest, the worthiest, 
 and most accomplished of her sex, as a peace- 
 
280 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 offering to his father's love. Plad he allowed 
 what he had done in this memorable matter 
 to transpire, he could not avoid coming to 
 the ungratifying conclusion, that his reward 
 would have been about the same as that he 
 had reaped by his timely warning to save 
 Sir Robert from the machinations that had 
 so cunningly been contrived for his de- 
 struction. 
 
STRA^\T3ERRY HILL. 281 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 A DREAM DISTURBED. 
 
 Sir Robert Walpole proved a true pro- 
 phet. The grand movement, in defiance of 
 royal authority, which covertly aimed at the 
 overthrow of the Minister, was brought for- 
 ward, with a wonderful deal of parade, by 
 the eloquent and disinterested Pulteney, in 
 the House of Commons, in the form of an 
 address to the King, to settle on his Heir 
 £100,000 a year, with as liberal a jointure 
 to the Princess. A similar motion was 
 
282 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 brought before the notice of the House of 
 Lords, by the amiable Lord Cartaret. In 
 the former it was defeated in a division, the 
 votes for the Minister being 234, for the 
 Prince 204; in the latter the result was 
 much less flattering, the motion having been 
 negatived by a majority of 103 to 40. 
 
 The philosophic Bolingbroke was so moved 
 by the ill success of his machinations, that, 
 in fit of distaste for public life No. 3, he 
 abruptly left England, vowing he would 
 never return to it again; and buried himself 
 in the deepest seclusion attainable in a 
 pretty cottage in the neighbourhood of Fon- 
 tainebleau. 
 
 His illustrious friend took his defeat in 
 still greater dudgeon. He abused his royal 
 father more bitterly than ever, and of course 
 did not spare the obnoxious Prime Minister 
 — now hated a thousand times more fiercely 
 than before. In that dogged sullenness 
 which appeared hereditary in his family, he 
 chose to put a great affront upon the King, 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 283 
 
 by hastily removing his consort from Hamp- 
 ton Court to St. James's, when about to give 
 birth to a child ; preventing the performance 
 of those ceremonies which were necessary to 
 authenticate the birth of a royal oiFspring, 
 and endangering the lives of both mother 
 and child. This contumelious act greatly 
 irritated the King ; and although the Prince 
 ventured to make many excuses, and ap- 
 peared as humble as he had before been con- 
 tumacious, his royal father was too deeply 
 offended to be easily appeased, and at last, 
 in an angry message, commanded him to 
 quit St. James's palace. 
 
 It is a curious coincidence, that Georofe I. 
 had a quarrel with his Heir respecting a 
 grandchild, and just as summarily turned 
 the Prince out of doors, as it might be called, 
 as George II. did Prince Frederick. The 
 latter found a domicile in Norfolk House, 
 St. James's Square, where he kept up the 
 indecorous squabble with his parent with a 
 degree of rancour and vulgarity that greatly 
 
28-i STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 scandalized the right-thinking portion of 
 the community. But the Opposition enjoyed 
 it wonderfully; and the disinterested Pul- 
 teney and the uncompromising Marchmont, 
 the amiable Carteret and the other leaders 
 of the Tories, took care to give his Royal 
 Highness the advantage of their countenance 
 and advice. 
 
 We must not forget to state, that the re- 
 sult of this division in both Houses of Par- 
 liament gave quite as much satisfaction to 
 some little folks, as it had created in some 
 great ones. The next meeting of '' The 
 Upper Servants' Supper Club" possessed 
 certain remarkable features. The President 
 maintained his presidential dignity undis- 
 turbed, to the breaking up of the party ; the 
 Vice having lost a great deal of that offensive 
 assurance which had, on the last meeting of 
 the Club, so very nearly brought them all to 
 loggerheads. Indeed, the Pulteney end of 
 the table looked what, in the graphic lan- 
 guage of one of the Walpolites, was termed 
 
STRAAVBERRY HILL. 285 
 
 " dumb-founclered." Xo one, hoAvever, shone 
 so conspicuously that evening as their tra- 
 velled fellow-member. Indeed, he made so 
 imposing a display of what had been said 
 at Eton and Cambridge, and what con- 
 tinued to be said in France and Italy, that 
 those well -coupled hounds in livery, who 
 addressed each other by the highest titles of 
 the peerage, appeared as if they could not 
 sufficiently express their admiration. 
 
 ^' I think I should like to take a tower ^^^ 
 observed the sky-blue-and-crimson gentleman 
 to the other, "It 's monstrous genteel to 
 talk about Paris and Rome, and all them 
 fine outlandish places, and goes a prodigious 
 way with the women in the housekeeper's 
 room. What do you think, Duke?" 
 
 " I think tho too, Marquith," replied his 
 scarlet-and-gold companion. 
 
 " I suspect Mrs. Jenny is ver}^ much taken 
 with that sort of thing? " 
 
 " Monthtrouthly taken with it, Marquith.' 
 
 "And Mrs. Susan will listen to nothino- 
 else?" 
 
286 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 " Slic'th grown quite inthenthible to my 
 meritth, I 'm tliorry to tliay." 
 
 The Duke sighed, and then the Marquis 
 sighed. There was evidently a great deal 
 in the back-ground respecting the Mrs. Jenny 
 and the Mrs. Susan mentioned by these wor- 
 thies ; but as, at this moment, the brilliant 
 valet of Mr. Walpole commenced a remi- 
 niscence of a certain extraordinary adven- 
 ture of his in the Abruzzi, with a female 
 bandit, they ceased their conversation to 
 listen to the wonderful narrative, and no 
 further insiu^ht could be obtained into the 
 cause of their intense sensibility. But we 
 must direct our attention to higher game. 
 
 Singular to relate, Horace Walpole was 
 but little elevated by his father's triumph ; 
 he had received such a fall in the unexpected 
 reception of his warning, that nothing now 
 seemed to have power to raise him. Possibly 
 the foreknowledge of this result might have 
 helped in causing this comparative indiffer- 
 ence; and when his friends warmly congra- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 287 
 
 tulated him on the good fortune of the 
 Minister, he received this evidence of their 
 o^oodwill as if he had nothino^ to do with it. 
 He felt like a servant listening to the praises of 
 a master who had dismissed him his service. 
 For some time he appeared to have taken 
 a distaste for public business — as though he 
 had no interest in the conflict of AMiigs and 
 Tories, and cared only for the reputation of 
 a man of fashion. He attended all the gay 
 parties, partook of all the amusements, and 
 shared in all the frivolous pursuits of what 
 then constituted the heau monde. He became 
 known to everybody, and every one became 
 known to him. Amongst his acquaintances 
 he did not forget to cultivate a D:ood under- 
 standing with the female leaders of ton — 
 indeed he might have considered himself on 
 a very good footing with more than one of 
 those fair philanthropists, whose lives shew a 
 perfect illustration of the command so very 
 difficult to follow — " Love your neighbour 
 as yourself." 
 
288 STRA^VBERKY HILL. 
 
 Amongst these, he thought it advisable 
 to pay every possible attention to Lady 
 Archibald Hamilton ; and her ladyship took 
 care to make known to him that she was 
 not indifferent to his merit. Their commu- 
 nications, however, had as yet been extremely 
 limited — they amounted to nothing beyond 
 compliments and flirtations, speaking smiles 
 and telegraphic glances ; but this is the kind 
 of fuel with which Master Cupid dresses our 
 human stoves, ready for the flame which is 
 so soon to fill every little pipe in our bodies 
 with its pleasant but dangerous heat. 
 
 Our hero did not think it advisable to 
 make his visits at Xorfolk House too con- 
 spicuous ; nor was he satisfied that his Royal 
 Hio"hness could so far foro-et his hatred of 
 the father, as to be particularly friendly to 
 the son — unless some object was to be gained 
 by it. He once had the honour of taking a 
 hand at whisk .at the royal table; but, by 
 some extraordinary accident, the Prince lost 
 the odd trick to him ; and this circumstance 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 289 
 
 was always remembered to his disadvantage. 
 Bubb Doddington never could have done 
 such a thing. Had he so committed himself, 
 he knew full well his promised peerage would 
 not have been worth a pinch of snuff. 
 
 But in this unprofitable kind of life 
 Horace Walpole found little gratification. 
 The \dvacity of his friends entertained him ; 
 the inexhaustible spirits of such companions 
 as Hanbury AVilliams and Charles To'svns- 
 hend, and the ludicrous eccentricities of the 
 torpid wit George Selw}Ti, acted as a per- 
 petual fountain of champagne, in which he 
 might refresh and invigorate his nature, 
 whea weary of the influence of his own 
 thouo;hts and feelinofs. But was he alwavs 
 weary of them? Xo. They might take 
 one direction in which they were like eagles 
 floating in an exalted atmosphere : that they 
 were sure to have entirely to themselves. 
 
 Often, when returning in the early morn- 
 ing from a crowded rout or noisy ridotto, 
 has the weary pleasure- seeker thro^vn hini- 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
290 STEA^\T3ErtRY HILL. 
 
 self on an easy couch or chair, and forgotten 
 all the frivolous world in which he had so 
 lately been moving ; and with the pencil of 
 memory dipped in the bright colours of the 
 imagination, brought upon the disc of the 
 mind those scenes of the past over which 
 happiness breathed its exquisite sunshine — 
 breathed, alas! but to show how vapoury, 
 how transient, how delusive, were such 
 phantasmagoria. But to the dreamer it 
 faded not. It was all aerial — a fata morgana 
 of the heart, as illusory as it was brilliant. 
 But he who throws himself back on the past, 
 looks solely for its beauty ; and in the past 
 only Horace knew he could look for beauty 
 — at least, that loveliness that contents the 
 sold — that light that throws no shadows. 
 
 What mattered it to him that these in- 
 dulgences formed that forbidden fruit of his 
 tree of knowledge? He gathered and ate, 
 and ate and gathered, as though he were 
 still in his Paradise, and had no command- 
 ment to infrin<]^e. He beheld those wondrous 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 291 
 
 eyes, he heard those eloquent sounds — round 
 him there floated a magic atmosphere of love 
 and music — passionate hopes sparkled like 
 stars in that exquisite firmament — his pulses 
 bounded with a delirious ecstasy — his whole 
 frame thrilled -with an incommunicable bliss 
 — he felt transported into that region of never 
 ending sunshine, the Elysium of classic song, 
 where the Loves and the Graces are the 
 attendants on human perfectibility, bearing 
 golden beakers of ambrosia and nectar, impos- 
 sible to resist — he fancied he clasped in his 
 rapturous arms a form, whose divine propor- 
 tions put to shame the charms of all the fair 
 deities of Olympus — when his ecstasies were 
 very suddenly and very rudely put to flight 
 by a voice that he soon became conscious 
 was much too earthly for so exalted a locality 
 as the Elysian Fields. 
 
 "Now, if your Honour pleases," exclaimed 
 the very sleepy Fibbs, with a bedchamber can- 
 dlestick in his hand, trying to rouse his young 
 master, while he vainly attempted to stifle a 
 
 2 
 
292 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ya^vn, " it 's very late, Sir ; allez couchei\ as 
 we say iii France. You 'd better go to bed, 
 Sir ; it 's rather early hours for a siesta^ as we 
 say in Italy. I 've been waiting your return, 
 reading ' Tom Jones,' till I fell asleep over a 
 love-scene with his sweetheart, Sir." This 
 was accompanied by an opening of his mouth, 
 of such prodigious extension, that checking 
 it was evidently out of the question. 
 
 His master stared at him unconsciously 
 for a few seconds, then rose from his recum- 
 bent posture, and — oh horror to the romance 
 which had so lately transported him amongst 
 the Loves and Graces! — stretched out his 
 arms and followed the sleepy demonstration 
 of his attendant, in a manner that threatened 
 immediate dislocation of his jaws. 
 
STKA^YBERRY HILL. 293 
 
 CHAPTER XIIT. 
 
 A woman's heart. 
 
 There is no subject more Trritten about, 
 and, as usual, less known, than a woman's 
 heart. T\"e have our moral anatomists who 
 profess to shew the whole arcana of its 
 curious secrets, and dissect with equal assi- 
 duity and care its finest fibre, that they may 
 make the world thoroughly acquainted ^-ith 
 it; and then they boast of their familiarity 
 with its structure and economy. But when 
 we hear of such claimants of this rare know- 
 
294 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 ledge, we are strongly tempted to exclaim — 
 after the fashion of a second-rate painter of 
 the last generation, when informed that a 
 royal personage had declared that he was 
 well acquainted mth him — ''Pooh ! it 's only 
 his brag." 
 
 These subtle inquirers and deep observers 
 mil, nearly always, be found lamentably 
 ignorant. A woman's heart is one of the 
 lost books of Euclid : — not one unattainable 
 problem, but a whole volume of them. Our 
 progress in such mathematics enables us to 
 see only a short distance into the difficulty. 
 We are cognizant of its inconsistencies and 
 contradictions, but we neither pretend to 
 analyze nor to explain them. 
 
 In the instance of our heroine, we are per- 
 fectly aware of the combination of incoherent 
 qualities that may be said to form her cha- 
 racter. But in our eyes, woman is the 
 SPHYNX, typified by the inexplicable monu- 
 ment of the Egyptians — an unexplainable 
 conundrum — an Ornitliorhynctus jjaradoxus^ 
 
STEAWBERRY HILL. 295 
 
 more marvellous than the naturalists of 
 Australia have made knoAvn to us. We are 
 not professed reasoners on such riddles ; and 
 if Arabella Falkland seems to act at variance 
 "vvitli what some writers term her idiosyn- 
 cracy, we must not be expected to expound 
 a phenomenon so very common with her 
 dear sex. 
 
 Consistency, now-a-days, among the lords 
 of the creation, is a virtue as completely 
 forgotten as the composition of the Greek 
 fire ; or, if ever to be seen, it is in those who 
 are consistent only in being inconsistent. 
 What the philosopher Square designated 
 " the eternal fitness of things," has long be- 
 come the exact reverse. Nothing is appro- 
 priate but what is most opposite. Im- 
 possibilities are matters of course, and 
 contradictions the best possible logic. 
 
 Our holy men rival each other in exhi- 
 biting every vice that can most degrade 
 humanity. If they are not wolves to their 
 flocks, it is because they take care to prove 
 
296 STEAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 themselves more monstrous beasts.* Our 
 learned men stultify themselves by follies of 
 which a child would be ashamed. One sees 
 incredible marvels by looking through his 
 legs; another discovers impossible comets 
 when most probably his legs refused to sup- 
 port him; and a whole tribe of them are at 
 feud with each other as to the best means 
 of preserving for the present the rubbish 
 of the past. Our wealthy men emulate 
 
 * Perhaps it may be thought hard, an entire profession 
 should be stigmatised for the unworthiness of a few of its 
 members ; but when at least a dozen cases of clerical delin- 
 quency have lately occurred, embracing the most atrocious 
 crimes in the calendar of wickedness, including: incest, adul- 
 tery, fornication, forger^-, drunkenness, and simonj-, and the 
 criminals are still suffered to retain their sacred employ- 
 ments, we, in common with all the right-thinking part of the 
 laity, cannot help considering the profession to be lament- 
 ably disgraced. The Quakers, when one of their body mis- 
 behaves himself, dismiss him from their community — an 
 officer, acting in a manner unbecoming an officer, is ca- 
 shiered — and even a common soldier, when found to be an 
 incorrigible vagabond, is drummed out of his regiment. A 
 Minister of the Gospel alone has the privilege of exhibiting 
 the most revolting depravity, without the fear of expulsion 
 from his order. 
 
STEAWBEKRY HILL. 297 
 
 each other in extravagant donations towards 
 a memorial to some man whose riches al- 
 most exceed calculation; whibt the newly- 
 born of their fellow-creatures, from being 
 denied covering when quitting the chainty 
 that allowed them birth, y the freez- 
 
 ing blast; and the helpless aged, 
 
 turned out of the hu* ^ . i : had always 
 been to them a shelt^ ;wever httle it 
 may have realized our i.e. - of a home, are 
 left to die in the first ditch to Tvliioh thev 
 can crawl. Undoubtedly we :: ' come to 
 the eternal z^/i -fitness of things. 
 
 It is not the mesm-ii-; :,.' . : - 
 with the backs of their 1 ; - : all society 
 have got the same extraordinary gift of 
 beholding objects out of their sphere of 
 vision ; — nay, so strange is this quahry, that 
 the human mole, who never observed an 
 inch bevond his nose in a natural wav. can 
 readily chscover the most minute trifle when 
 he can regard it in some inapproachable 
 position. It is such as these who overlook 
 
 o3 
 
298 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 the crime that taints the air they breathe, 
 while subscribing their thousands to convert 
 the heathen in the Antipodes. 
 
 It used to be accounted a singularity in 
 the waterman that he should look one way 
 and row another ; but now the whole family 
 of mankind follow the same fashion: they 
 are content to go backward, and see only 
 what they have passed. We should not 
 have, unless this were the case, the constant 
 references to Hansard in one place — the 
 voluntary return to a long abandoned faith 
 in another — the eager adaptation of art 
 in its most uncouth barbarism — and the 
 frantic enthusiasm for literature in its swad- 
 dling-clothes. In short, we are all looking 
 one way and rowing another. 
 
 If such irregularities are common in 
 one sex, there surely can be little occasion 
 for apology for whatever there is of a like 
 nature in the other. Heroines may be 
 regarded as the comets — if not of the Coper- 
 nican, of the Colburnian system; they be- 
 
STRAWBERIIY HILL. 299 
 
 long to that class of the heavenly bodies 
 that invariably pursue an eccentric course. 
 Our heroine mil be found peculiarly to 
 deserve this similitude. She was passion- 
 ately in love with Horace Walpole, and she 
 had long professed to consider him unwor- 
 thy of a thought ; and she was exclusively 
 devoted to the unfortunate exile her father 
 had served with such rare fidelity ; yet cared 
 more to hear how her discarded lover was 
 distinguishing himself, than the probabili- 
 ties there existed of her Sovereign's trium- 
 phant return to his dominions. 
 
 Several months had passed since the ab- 
 rupt termination to the sweetest enjoyment 
 Arabella had ever known, when she was 
 sittincc mth her father in one of the eleo^ant 
 apartments of their villa, looking out into 
 the open country, with a volume of Petrarch 
 in her hand. The book, attractive as it 
 was, had engaged but little of her thoughts. 
 The poetry of the Italian lover seemed tame 
 compared to that which had been breathed 
 
300 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 SO glowingly into licr o^^^l soul. The hand 
 that clasped the open volume was in her 
 lap; and her eloquent eyes, softened and 
 subdued by some tender recollection, rested 
 themselves on vacancy — a tear Avas trem- 
 bling on her long silken lashes — and the 
 light of the soul within seemed to flash 
 upon it, making it a diamond more radiant 
 than the most experienced lapidary had 
 ever seen. 
 
 Arabella Falkland had so completely 
 given herself up to her oaati reflections, that 
 she did not notice she had for some time 
 been the object of her father's anxious and 
 tender scrutiny. His proud and gloomy 
 features gave evidence of deep emotion, as 
 he shook his head distrustfully, and ceased 
 to take any interest in the pious work from 
 which he had so recently derived such deep 
 gratification. He sighed heavily. Just then 
 there was a struggle going on in his breast, 
 that imported much to his fair companion. 
 He had lately been entertaining certain 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 301 
 
 ambitious speculations which sought the 
 advancement of his idolized daughter, by 
 an exaltation that very few fathers of his 
 rank would have contemplated even in their 
 dreams. 
 
 Lord Falkland valued his daughter's 
 worth as equal to grace any destiny. But 
 with this great ambition was great love. 
 At the idea of her having to endure suffer- 
 ing, by the current of her affections being 
 rudely diverted from the channel they had 
 made for themselves, he caught himself 
 wishing that Horace Walpole had not been 
 the son of a man who had rendered him- 
 self so obnoxious to the Jacobites as the 
 Usurper's able Minister ; or that some pros- 
 pect would offer for directing her warm 
 young heart towards a more desirable ob- 
 ject. This last idea reminded him of a 
 circumstance that appeared to have escaped 
 his recollection. 
 
 ^' Arabella, my love! " he exclaimed. 
 
 A smile broke over the saddened features 
 
302 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 of the youtliful beauty, directly she heard 
 herself addressed by her parent ; and all trace 
 of that pensive tenderness which had so 
 touched his nature, vanished like a vapour 
 before the sun. 
 
 " What think you of his Eoyal Highness ? " 
 he added. 
 
 Now there was a good deal in this ques- 
 tion that requires explanation. The confi- 
 dence reposed in his counsellor by the Che- 
 valier St. George, as the son of James II. 
 was usually styled, afforded Lord Falkland 
 opportunities of being on terms of affec- 
 tionate intimacy with the royal children. 
 The eldest had been a frequent visitor at th^ 
 villa, and these visits had greatly increased 
 since it had boasted so rare an attraction as 
 the lovely daughter of its possessor. 
 
 The Prince of Wales — as he was consi- 
 dered by his father's miniature Court — had 
 arrived at an age when the influence of femi- 
 nine beauty makes its way most directly to 
 the imagination ; and, attended as was this 
 
STRAAVBERIIY HILL. SOP) 
 
 winning charm in the person of Arabella 
 Falkland Avith an intelligence that was even 
 more attractive, it must not be thought very 
 surprising that the young Prince shewed a 
 marked preference for her society. 
 
 This preference was the key-stone in the 
 ambitious structure on which the proud and 
 fond father thought of rearing his daughter's 
 happiness — his pride and his partiality lead- 
 ing him very readily to imagine, that if not 
 for her own inestimable worth, and her 
 descent from one of the most ancient fami- 
 lies in England, as a member of the princely 
 house into which he had married, he might 
 reasonably aspire to such an alliance. 
 
 His daughter certainly took a decided 
 interest in the youthful Prince: she was 
 steadfast in her devotion to his family; and 
 possibly her kindly manner towards him, and 
 the pleasure his presence seemed to afford 
 her, caused both her father and his Royal 
 Hio-hness to believe that she regarded him 
 with affection. 
 
304 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 " I think Prince Charles possessed of many 
 good qualities," replied the young lady to 
 her father's question — " He is ardent, ro- 
 mantic, and sanguine — very good materials 
 to work upon for noble results, if the dispo- 
 sition of his Royal Highness be sufficiently 
 plastic to allow of such work." 
 
 " You ou<2:ht to know somethino^ of his 
 disposition, my child, for you have had no 
 lack of opportunity for studying it." 
 
 " True, Papa. I have lately seen a good 
 deal of Prince Charles, but not sufficient to 
 satisfy me that his disposition is ever}^thing 
 his best friends could wish." 
 
 " You astonish me. Every one in Rome 
 speaks in the highest terms of his Royal 
 Highness' s amiability." 
 
 " I do not doubt that the Prince is very 
 amiable." 
 
 " What would you have in a Prince? " 
 
 " I would have energy — decision of cha- 
 racter — high intellect — generous sympathies 
 — and exalted courage." 
 
STRA^\TBERRY HILL. 305 
 
 Lord Falkland paused. Was it to admire 
 the lofty expression of that exquisite coun- 
 tenance, or to reflect on what he had heard ? 
 In a moment he spoke again. 
 
 *' You think the Prince deficient in these 
 qualities? " 
 
 "I have not seen any evidence of their 
 existence," she quietly replied. 
 
 " But you must remember, my child, that 
 his Royal Highness is peculiarly situated. 
 Ke is placed in such circumstances as render 
 it impossible for him to find occasion for the 
 development of such qualities. He may 
 possess them — indeed it is a moral certainty 
 that a Stuart must possess them — they lie 
 ready for use, when the time arrives which 
 should call them into action. We are not 
 the masters of our o^vn destinies. The best 
 — the greatest — the msest — are but puppets 
 in the hand of the Great Disposer of events. 
 The misfortunes of his family have placed 
 his Royal Highness in a position that throws 
 almost insurmountable obstacles in the way 
 
306 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 of his finding for himself such a career as 
 you and all his warmest friends desire for 
 him. But our negociations with the court 
 of France will, I have every reason to believe, 
 in a very short time, open for the Prince the 
 path of honour and greatness, under auspices 
 as brilliant as shall accord with the grandeur 
 of his birth.'' 
 
 " No one would or could rejoice at this 
 more than myself — but " — 
 
 " His Royal Highness the Prince of 
 Wales ! " shouted their confidential English 
 servant, throwing the door as wide open as 
 possible, to admit a young man of fair and 
 rather delicate aspect, slight figure, and 
 graceful bearing, wearing his o^vn light hair 
 rather long, and dressed in a suit of purple 
 velvet without ornament except the star at 
 his breast. 
 
 Lord Falkland and his daufrhter rose as 
 the Prince entered; and, assuredly, his Royal 
 Highness had no reason to complain, either 
 of want of respect or of cordiality in his 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 307 
 
 reception. The Prince began detailing, mtli 
 great affability, and with much apparent 
 light-heartedness, the gossip of Rome. Lord 
 Falkland made respectful inquiries after the 
 health of his father, and Arabella made 
 similar allusions to his brother; but the 
 Prince at that moment had but little to say 
 respecting his family, and a vast deal about 
 strangers, of whom the Falklands cared to 
 know nothing. 
 
 Presently his Lordship was summoned 
 away, and the two young people w^ere left 
 alone. The Prince immediately drew his 
 chair close to his fair companion, and, look- 
 ing into her brilliant eyes with no slight 
 degree of admiration, began a conversation 
 of a very different kind and tendency. 
 
 " What makes you so thoughtful to-day? " 
 he inquired earnestly; " I do not think so 
 divine a face ought ever to look serious." 
 
 " I have reason to be thoughtful, your 
 Royal Highness." 
 
 " Oh, pray get rid of your reason, and 
 
308 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 your tliouglitfulness ^vill of course go in its 
 train. But what has happened? I trust 
 nothing can have occurred likely to chase 
 away from that angelic mouth, the smiles 
 that clothe it with such ravishing beauty?'' 
 
 " Indeed, every day I have cause to make 
 me smile less and less — to make me think 
 more and more." 
 
 " For Heaven's sake tell me what is the 
 cause, that threatens to that charming face 
 so much mischief." 
 
 " Yourself, Prince." 
 
 " Do you indeed tell me that / am the 
 cause?" exclaimed his lioyal Highness, 
 taking her hand with a tender glance ; "In 
 the name of all that 's deplorable, what have 
 I done?" 
 
 '' It is not what your Royal Highness has 
 done that causes so much thought," said his 
 fair companion, suiFering him to retain her 
 hand, " it is what your Royal Highness has 
 not done." 
 
 "I am fairly puzzled," he cried ; " perhaps 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 903 
 
 you are only amusing yourself; but yet you 
 do not look as if you were jesting." 
 
 "It is far too serious a matter ; but I will 
 in few words explain what causes me so 
 much reflection — indeed, I may add, without 
 aiFectation, so much concern." 
 
 The Prince looked as grateful as he 
 thought he ought to look, at being told by 
 so beautiful a woman that he was an object 
 of interest. 
 
 " The unworthy position of Your Royal 
 Highness's family has long engrossed my 
 best sympathies. I could not behold, ^vitli- 
 out the awakening of all my sensibilities, 
 the rightful Sovereign of my country reduced, 
 by misfortunes which he had not incurred, 
 to his present humble fortunes." 
 
 " Yes, divine Arabella, I am well aware 
 of the goodness of your heart. Your kind 
 feelings towards us do you honour, and be 
 assured that I am truly and deeply grateful 
 for them. But my father's dependence on 
 other governments prevents any thing being 
 
310 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 attempted to alter the state to which we 
 have unhappily been reduced." 
 
 " Pardon me, if I say I do not see that. 
 The King unfortunately may be dependent 
 — but that dependence need not shackle the 
 Prince of Wales." 
 
 " I A^^sh I could see a way of doing any- 
 thing : I should not be long in following it, 
 wherever it led." 
 
 " With such feelings, half the difficulties 
 of your Royal Highness's position may be 
 readily got rid of." 
 
 " How ?" cried the Prince, with lively 
 emotion, as he continued to watch the ex- 
 pressive countenance of his beautiful coun- 
 sellor. 
 
 '^ Heroic minds make their own opportu- 
 nities," she calmly replied; " Alexander the 
 Great was not much older than your Royal 
 Hiofhness when he set out on his career of 
 conquest ; and, though I am well aware he 
 was very much better furnished for such a 
 career, there is no doubt you have advan- 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 311 
 
 tages he did not possess, with all his re- 
 sources." 
 
 " Pray tell me what they are, for I assure 
 you I am quite ignorant of them." 
 
 '' In the kingdoms he went to conquer, all 
 were enemies ; in those which ought to be 
 your conquest, your Eoyal Highness has 
 numerous friends." 
 
 "Granted; but numerous as they are, I 
 am more than doubtful they would suffice 
 without very considerable assistance. I am 
 as eager as ever was Alexander to attempt 
 such an enterprise ; but this for one man to 
 undertake, in my judgment, savours more of 
 madness than heroism." 
 
 " Doubtless your Royal Highness has 
 read the legends of our Holy Church — and 
 must remember how the Primitive Fathers, 
 Apostles, and Holy Saints of our sacred 
 faith, established our blessed rehgion among 
 heathen nations. They did not go with an 
 army of ecclesiastics to take possession of 
 the heathen soil, and by force convert the 
 
312 STRA^YBEERY HILL. 
 
 natives to Christianity. The Apostle ven- 
 tured unattended into the midst of fierce 
 hordes, of which every individual would 
 have made a merit of putting him to death. 
 He preached God's Holy "Word — his elo- 
 quence was his only weapon, his faith his 
 only defence. He went alone, where every 
 man was his enemy — he went, and conquered. 
 The same exalted impulse that created a 
 saint, under other circumstances would form 
 a hero." 
 
 The Prince gazed upon the noble expres- 
 sion in the countenance of his companion 
 for some few seconds, with admiration that 
 appeared too eloquent for language. 
 
 " Has it never occurred to your Koyal 
 Highness," she continued with increasing 
 animation, " that the greatest risk might be 
 attended with the greatest results? — that 
 more miofht be done under circumstances 
 apparently hopeless, than where they were the 
 most auspicious? The best provided expe- 
 ditions have often proved the most signal 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 813 
 
 failures. AVliat wanted the Spanish Armada 
 to insure the object for which its vast means 
 were collected? Its end was most disas- 
 trous. What sort of resources had Columbus 
 for his great expedition ? How limited 
 were the means with which Fernando Cortez 
 added the empires of South America to 
 European rule! 
 
 " I am ever haunted by an heroic dream, 
 in which an illustrious individual, in whom 
 I cannot but feel the deepest interest, figures 
 as a worthy rival to these great men. I 
 fancy a legitimate Prince, long exiled from 
 his countr}", suddenly making his appearance 
 amongst his loving subjects — whose devotion 
 is excited to the highest exaltation of which 
 mere human feeling is capable, by his ap- 
 parent helplessness — added to the confidence 
 in their honour he expresses, by venturing 
 in the midst of them, with little but his own 
 sword and his good cause to back him in his 
 glorious enterprise. 
 
 " I imag^ine a flame of the most ardent 
 
 VOL. I. P 
 
314 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 loyalty kindled in the breasts of a few gene- 
 rous men by this stirring spectacle — I see 
 their noble examples followed by hundreds 
 — those hundreds rapidly swelling to thou- 
 sands — of daring and active partizans. I 
 behold the irresistible shock of these brave 
 spirits overthromng the armed bands sent 
 to oppose them, and then multiplpng their 
 force a thousand-fold with wondrous rapidity. 
 
 " 1 \iew the young hero at the head of a 
 well-appointed army, proceeding on his vic- 
 torious way, driving before him the hired 
 bands of the Usurper of his royal dignity ; 
 and, lastly. Fancy brings forward the con- 
 cluding scene of these inspiring pictures, in 
 the shape of the triumphant entrance of this 
 heroic Prince into the capital of his here- 
 ditary dominions, amid the hearty acclama- 
 tions and grateful welcomes of his happy 
 people." 
 
 " You are right," observed his Eoyal 
 Highness, warmly pressing her hand in his 
 OTVTi, as, with much emotion, he rose from 
 
STRAWBERRY HILL. 315 
 
 his seat, " You have pointed out to me, 
 di\ine Arabella, what I ought to do. As 
 Heaven is my witness, I am impatient to 
 begin the adventure. Perhaps you do not 
 know that negociations are proceeding mth 
 the Court of France, that hold out such a 
 prospect to me as I should have most coveted, 
 had not your thrilling words just convinced 
 me that another was open, infinitely more 
 glorious. 
 
 " I am about proceeding to that Court 
 by its invitation. I dare not refuse its assist- 
 ance, if offered under circumstances that 
 render its acceptance advantageous to my 
 father's interests ; but should that assistance 
 not be forthcoming, be assured, my lovely 
 counsellor, the next intelligence of my move- 
 ments that reaches your ear, shall afford you 
 the conviction, that neither your exquisite 
 beauty, nor your spirit-stirring eloquence, 
 has been without a^^propriate results." 
 
 The Prince gallantly raised her hand to 
 his lips, and the next moment Arabella Falk- 
 
 p 2 
 
316 STRAWBERRY HILL. 
 
 land was alone. — Not quite alone, for she 
 had the company of her o^\^l bright thoughts, 
 which assured her that the far distant 
 star that had glimmered in her gloomy 
 future, had received a vast increase of size 
 and radiance — that her attachment to the 
 son of the hated Walpole had lost that utter 
 hopelessness in which she had for so many 
 melancholy months tried to regard it. 
 
 END OF VOL. I. 
 
 HATTON & CO., PRINTERS, KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN.