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the claim of France for an equal right to the navigation of the Amazon river. As regards the Elector of Bavaria, Anne was willing that he should retain the sovereignty of Luxemburg until he had a satisfaction. made to him on account of his claims in Germany, but he was not to be himself the judge of that satisfaction. As regards the Barrier of Holland, the French had agreed, after a long struggle, to yield the town and territory of Tournay, but they desired, and might be permitted, to retain the small posts of St. Amand and Mortaigne. On the other hand they must give up all claim to the fortress and the several dependencies of Ypres. Only as to Bailleul a discretion was allowed to the Duke of Shrewsbury.

The effect of this firmness was decisive. Torcy and his colleagues saw, with some alarm, that the muchdesired Peace might slip from them if its terms were strained too far. They agreed almost at once to everything demanded, and Torcy, with all the gaiety and good-humour of his countrymen, even when baffled in an object, protested that he had been all along as eager to conclude as they could be in England. Instructions were sent accordingly to Utrecht, and there were no further delays beyond what the slow forms of diplomacy in that age required. With this prospect Bolingbroke could also look with cheerfulness on the conduct of home affairs. Thus he wrote again to Shrewsbury on the 3rd of March: "I think the Whigs seem to give up the success of this Session. Their principal heroes are gone the circuit: Nottingham is pelted from all quarters. I cannot help saying in the fulness of my soul to your Grace, that if we do not establish ourselves and the true interests of our country it is the Queen's and Treasurer's fault. The clamour of Jacobitism seems to be the only

resource of our enemies; and I am sorry to tell you that the Duke of Argyle gives too affectedly into that poor artifice." For Argyle, who had of a sudden joined the Tories, was now with his usual versatility veering back to the Whigs.

The difficulties, great and small, of the negotiation having been in this manner surmounted, the treaties were signed at Utrecht on the 31st of March according to the style of England, the 11th of April according to the style of the southern continental nations. There was signed a Treaty of Peace and next a Treaty of Commerce between France and England. There were signed on the same day separate Treaties for the States of Holland, the King of Portugal, the King of Prussia, and the Duke of Savoy. The Treaty between England and Spain was, in formal conclusion, for some weeks further postponed; and the Emperor's peace with France, re-establishing the two Electors, was not signed until next year at Rastadt, on the 6th of March, between Villars and Eugene.

It is the earlier day however—the 31st of March in English style-which forms the point of departure for those Histories of England which profess to commence at the peace of Utrecht.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE AGE OF ANNE.

As the Ancients might boast of their Augustan age; as in England men point with pride to the age of Elizabeth, in Italy to the age of Leo the Tenth, and in France to the age of Louis the Fourteenth, so again among the English a halo has gathered round the age of Anne. Succeeding as she did a Dutch and to be succeeded by a German King, she holds in our Literature an especial and an English place; and thus full many works of genius and renown, though they may have been commenced under William or continued under George, are taken by the world to be centred in her reign.

Certainly it was an illustrious period, a period not easily paralleled elsewhere, that could combine the victories of Marlborough with the researches of Newton -the statesmanship of Somers with the knight-errantry of Peterborough-the publication of Clarendon's History with the composition of Burnet's-the eloquence of Bolingbroke in Parliament and of Atterbury in the pulpit, with the writings in prose and verse of Swift and Addison, of Pope and Prior. It is also deserving of note how frequent was the intercourse and how familiar the friendship in those days between the leaders of political parties and the men in the front rank of in

If

tellectual eminence. Since Queen Anne there has not been found in England the same amount of intimacy between them, or anything like the same amount. this were only to say that the men who were Ministers or who desired to be so, sought out or consorted with those persons who they thought could assist them in their objects as negotiators, as pamphleteers, or as party writers, the fact would scarce be worthy the remark. Even thus however it is not always that a Secretary of State and a Chargé d'Affaires would, as Bolingbroke at St. James's and Matthew Prior at Paris, drop the "My Lord" and "Sir" in all letters not strictly official, and prefer to write to each other as "Harry to Matt" and "Matt to Harry." But the case went much further than this.

Somers and Halifax especially on one side, Bolingbroke and Oxford on the other, being themselves accomplished in literature, loved the society of men of letters for its own sake, and although there might not be the smallest prospect of any political advantage accruing from it. Nay more, they would sometimes on personal grounds help forward or promote an adherent or at least a well wisher of the opposite side. With men of genius of whatever rank they lived not on the footing of chiefs or patrons but on equal terms as friends. All state or ostentation was avoided. Thus when Harley was created Earl of Oxford, he would not for some time allow Swift to call him by his new title, and whenever Swift did so Oxford gave a jesting nickname in return. Thus also one day at Court, when Oxford as Lord Treasurer was in state attire and held the White Staff in his hand, he walked up through the crowd of courtiers to Swift, and asked to be made known to Dr. Parnell who was standing by. "I value myself" says Swift

upon making the Ministry desire to be acquainted with Parnell and not Parnell with the Ministry.' Indeed there was perhaps no man of his time more genial, more truly at home with men of genius, more thoroughly enjoying their converse and desirous of their friendship than this the last of the Lord Treasurers of England. They were not ungrateful; and through their means it has happened that, while Harley is but little to be valued or honored as a statesman, he shines in History with a lustre not his own. Certainly if he showed favor to the Muses the debt has been most amply repaid.2

Frank and open as were the statesmen of that age in their conversation with their friends, they were, and with good reason, reserved and cautious in their correspondence while their adversaries were in power. This arose from the ill practice, continued to a much later period, of opening letters at the post. In the reign of Queen Anne we may observe frequent complaints on that score. Thus, when in the autumn of 1710 Craggs was returning home from his post at Barcelona, we find him address Stanhope as follows from the Hague: "I writ you the 9th instant I would go straight to England. But having considered better, I am resolved to go to my Lord Duke first (at his camp in Flanders), for I believe he will be glad to give me several commissions which

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Non obtusa adeo gestamus pectora Pœni : Nec tam aversus equos Tyria Sol jungit ab urbe."

2 I allude especially to the noble lines which were addressed to him in Pope's Epistle to accompany the gift of Parnell's poems. They

1 Journal to Stella, January 31, 1713. In a letter from Swift to Pope dated January 10, 1721, we further find: "I can never forget the answer he (the Earl of Oxford) gave to the late Lord Halifax who, upon the first change of the Ministry, interceded with him to spare Mr. Congreve; it was by A soul supreme in each hard instance repeating these two lines of Virgil,

VOL. II.

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