with a rush to please himself, it is well enough; but if he should go into Fleet-street, and sit upon a stall, and twirl a band-string, or play with a rush, then all the boys in the street would laugh at him.

3. Verse proves nothing but the quantity of syllables; they are not meant for logic.

XXV. THE POPE.

1. He was a wise pope, that, when one that used to be merry with him, before he was advanced to the popedom, refrained afterwards to come at him, presuming he was busy in governing the Christian world: the pope sends for him-bids him come again; "And," says he, "we will be merry as we were before, for thou little thinkest what a little foolery governs the whole world."

2. The pope in sending relics to princes, does as wenches do by their wassels at New-year'stide; they present you with a cup, and you must drink of a slabby stuff; but the meaning is, you must give them moneys, ten times more than it is worth.

XXVI. POWER. STATE.

1. There is no stretching of power: it is a good rule-Eat within your stomach; act within your commission.

2. They that govern most make least noise. You see when they row in a barge, they that do drudgery work, slash, and puff, and sweat; but he that governs, sits quietly at the stern, and scarcely is seen to stir.

3. Syllables govern the world.

4. All power is of God, means no more than fides est servanda. When St Paul said this, the people had made Nero emperor. They agree,-he

to command, they to obey; then God comes in, and casts a hook upon them, keep your faith: then comes in, all power is of God. Never king dropped out of the clouds. God did not make a new emperor, as the king makes a justice of peace.

XXVII. REVERENCE.

It is sometimes unreasonable to look after respect and reverence, either from a man's own servant, or other inferiors. A great lord and a gentleman talking together, there came a boy by, leading a calf with both his hands: says the lord to the gentleman, "You shall see me make the boy let go his calf." With that he came towards him, thinking the boy would have put off his hat; but the boy took no notice of him. The lord seeing that, "Sirrah," says he, "do you not know me, that you use no reverence?" "Yes," says the boy, "if your lordship will hold my calf, I will put off my hat."

XXVIII. STATE.

In a troubled state save as much for your own as you can. A dog had been at market to buy a shoulder of mutton; coming home he met two dogs by the way, that quarrelled with him; he laid down his shoulder of mutton, and fell to fighting with one of them; in the mean time the other dog fell to eating his mutton. He seeing that, left the dog he was fighting with, and fell upon him that was eating; then the other dog fell to eat when he perceived there was no remedy, but which of them soever he fought withal, his mutton was in danger, he thought he would have as much of it as he could, and thereupon gave over fighting, and fell to eating himself.

WALPOLE'S REMINISCENCES.

["His Reminiscences of the Reigns of George I. and George II., make us better acquainted with the manners of these princes and their courts than we should be after perusing a hundred heavy historians; and futurity will long be indebted to the chance which threw into his vicinity, when age rendered him communicative, the accomplished ladies to whom these Anecdotes were communicated."]

Quarterly Review, Sept. 1818.

XXIX. GEORGE I.

As I was the youngest by eleven years of Sir Robert Walpole's children by his first wife, and was extremely weak and delicate, as you see mẹ still, though with no constitutional complaint till I had the gout after forty; and as my two sisters were consumptive and died of consumptions; the supposed necessary care of me (and I have overheard persons saying, "That child cannot possibly live,") so engrossed the attention of my mother, that compassion and tenderness soon became extreme fondness; and as the infinite good-nature of my father never thwarted any of his children, he suffered me to be too much indulged, and permitted her to gratify the first vehement inclination that ever I expressed, and which, as I have never

since felt any enthusiasm for royal persons, I must suppose that the female attendants in the family must have put into my head, to long to see the King. This childish caprice was so strong, that my mother solicited the Duchess of Kendal to obtain for me the honour of kissing his Majesty's hand before he set out for Hanover. A favour so unusual to be asked for a boy of ten years old, was still too slight to be refused to the wife of the first minister for her darling child; yet not being proper to be made a precedent, it was settled to be in private and at night.

Accordingly, the night but one before the King began his last journey, my mother carried me at ten at night to the apartment of the Countess of Walsingham, on the ground-floor towards the garden at St James's, which opened into that of her aunt the Duchess of Kendal; apartments occupied by George II. after his Queen's death, and by his successive mistresses, the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth.

Notice being given that the King was come down to supper, Lady Walsingham took me alone into the Duchess's anteroom, where we found alone the King and her. I knelt down, and kissed his hand. He said a few words to me, and my conductress led me back to my mother.

The person of the King is as perfect in my memory as if I saw him but yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather pale, and exactly like his pictures and coins; not tall, of an aspect rather good than august, with a dark tie-wig, a plain. coat, waistcoat, and breeches of snuff-coloured cloth, with stockings of the same colour, and a blue riband over all. So entirely was he my object

that I do not believe I once looked at the Duchess; but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering the room, I remember that just beyond his Majesty stood a very tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady; but I did not retain the least idea of her features, nor know what the colour of her dress was.

My childish loyalty, and the condescension in gratifying it, were, I suppose, causes that contributed very soon afterwards to make me shed a flood of tears for that Sovereign's death, when with the other scholars at Eton college I walked in procession to the proclamation of the successor; and which (though I think they partly fell because I imagined it became the son of a prime-minister to be more concerned than other boys,) were no doubt imputed by many of the spectators who were politicians, to my fears of my father's most probable fall, but of which I had not the smallest conception; nor should have met with any more concern than I did when it really arrived in the year 1742, by which time I had lost all taste for courts, and princes, and power, as was natural to one who never felt an ambitious thought for himself.

It must not be inferred from her obtaining this grace for me, that the Duchess of Kendal was a friend to my father. On the contrary, at that moment she had been labouring to displace him, and introduce Lord Bolingbroke into the administration; on which I shall say more hereafter.

It was an instance of Sir Robert's singular fortune, or evidence of his talents, that he not only preserved his power under two successive monarchs, but in spite of the efforts of both their mistresses to remove him. It was perhaps still more remarkable, and an instance unparalleled, that Sir