both were firm against his overtures, and Halifax also after some wavering declined. Of Somers the Queen spoke with much commendation after he had left her service, saying to Lord Dartmouth that he was a man who had never deceived her 6. -a praise which, I think, she could not have bestowed as truly on many other statesmen of that time. Cowper also stood high in the Queen's esteem, as is best shown by the fact that she put back the Great Seal "at least five times" into his hands when he offered to give it up to Her Majesty.7

The Whig Ministers however did not in general resign they waited to be turned out. Nor had they long to wait. Harley finding his private overtures to them rejected, fell back wholly on the Tories. With that party he now made a General Election his leading object. About five weeks after the dismissal of Godolphin, the Queen came to a Council and called for a Proclamation dissolving the Parliament. Cowper, who still held the Great Seal, offered to speak, but the Queen rising up forbade all debate, and ordered the Writs to be prepared. Thus on the 21st of September was the Parliament dissolved. The Writs were issued five days afterwards, the new Parliament being summoned to meet on the 25th of November.

At the same period, though by degrees, the new administration was appointed. The Great Seal was put into Commission, Harcourt being in the first instance restored to place as Attorney-General. But before the next meeting of Parliament he was named Lord Keeper, and finally Lord Chancellor. The Admiralty also

• Lord Dartmouth's note to Burnet's History, vol. vi. p. 12.

Lord Cowper's Diary, Sept.

22, 1710, as printed for the Roxburgh Club.

remained in Commission, Sir John Leake, who had hitherto been a junior, becoming First Lord instead of Orford. Rochester became Lord President in the place of Somers. Buckingham became Lord Steward in the place of Devonshire. Ormond became Lord Lieutenant in the place of Wharton. But above all the post of Secretary of State, left vacant by Boyle, was bestowed on the "all-accomplished St. John "-already eminent for speeches in the House of Commons, of which unhappily not one word has been preserved. But from this, his last accession to office, until the Queen's demise, we have his published correspondence -a worthy monument of his genius and a perfect model, it may be said, of style.8

Thus fell the great Whig administration of Queen Anne. Considering its high fame in history it is remarkable for how short a period it endured. The changes in Godolphin's government bringing it round from Tory to Whig took place, as we have seen, by slow degrees; but the latter party can scarcely be thought to have gained an entire ascendency until the resignation of Harley in the spring of 1708. According then to this computation, the Whigs were dominant for a period of but two years and a half. So far as regards the great battles of this war, the two parties, looking only to their tenure of power, are entitled to divide the credit between them. The Tories held office during Blenheim and Ramillies; the Whigs held office during Oudenarde and Malplaquet. But as regards the policy which led to these successes, the praise, as I conceive,

8 Correspondence, public and private, of Lord Viscount Bolingbroke (from the papers of his Under Secretary of State, Thomas

Mr.

Hare), 2 vols. quarto, 1798.
Pitt, as I have heard from my
father, was fond of referring to
this book.

belongs almost wholly to the Whigs. It was that war policy, aimed at the ambition of Louis the Fourteenth, which King William had pursued with more spirit than success-that policy which Somers and Somers' friends had consistently maintained--that policy brought at last to a triumphant issue by the genius of Marlborough and Eugene.

In a History by the author of the present work, published so far back as 1832, it was observed, "how much the course of a century has inverted the meaning of our party nicknames-how much a modern Tory resembles a Whig of Queen Anne's reign and a Tory of Queen Anne's reign a modern Whig. "9 But this view of the subject was warmly controverted by Lord, then Mr., Macaulay. In a justly famous essay he said: "We grant one half of Lord Mahon's proposition; from the other half we altogether dissent. We allow that a modern Tory resembles in many things a Whig of Queen Anne's reign... Society we believe is constantly advancing in knowledge. The tail is now where the head was some generations ago. But the head and tail still keep their distance. . . The stag in the Treatise on the Bathos, who 'feared his hind legs would o'ertake the fore,' was not more mistaken than Lord Mahon if he thinks that he has really come up with the Whigs.

It is worthy of note, however, that as time passed on Lord Macaulay came on full consideration to adopt the very view which he here opposes. This appears from his second essay on Lord Chatham published eleven

9 War of the Succession in Spain, p. 349. Many instances of this singular counter-charge are adduced in the Appendix to the first volume of the History of

England from the Peace of Utrecht (p. xlvi. second ed.).

1 Edinburgh Review of January 1833, p. 535, and since in the Collected Essays.

years later. Ever fertile of most ingenious illustrations he has now a serpent to allege in the place of a stag. For he writes as follows: "Dante tells us that he saw in Malebolge a strange encounter between a human Then a wonderful metamor

form and a serpent. phosis began. Each creature was transfigured into the likeness of its antagonist. ... Something like this was the transformation which during the reign of George the First befell the two English parties. Each gradually took the shape and colour of its foe. . ... Whatever judgment the Whig or Tory of that age might pronounce on transactions long past, there can be no doubt that, as respected the practical questions then pending, the Tory was a reformer, and indeed an intemperate and indiscreet reformer, while the Whig was conservative even to bigotry.'

2 Edinburgh Review, October | The passage referred to in Dante is 1844, p. 527, and Collected Essays. Inf. xxv. 100.

CHAPTER XIII.

Now began the war of the Elections. Now was shown the angry spirit which the impeachment of Sacheverell had first excited. Handbills were sent round by the High Church party, proclaiming both in prose and verse that their favourite institution was in danger. 1 Many took advantage of the cry even without sharing in the sentiment; and the result was, that in the contests the Tories commonly prevailed. They carried their candidates in the centres of popular election, and sometimes even in the strongholds of lordly influence. Thus St. John triumphantly observes in one of his letters, that the Duke of Somerset had been defeated not only in the county of Sussex but in the small town of Marlborough; that Lord Wharton, in like manner had succumbed both in Buckinghamshire and in Appleby. St. John himself, who had not been in the last Parliament, 2 was returned for Berkshire. Harley, who through his brother had hitherto divided with

1 Here is one of these as given in the complete history of Europe, 1710, p. 589. It was meant especially for the Middlesex election: "Join Churchmen, join, no longer

separate,

Lest you repent it when it is too late.
Low Church is no Church."

2 "Since H. St. John has resigned his place, his father refuses to choose him in Parliament that is for Wotton Basset. (H. Walpole to Stanhope, April 30, 1708, MS.).