SIR ROBERT WALPOLE AS PRIME MINISTER (1721-1741).
I.
By Lord Hervey.
Source.—John, Baron Hervey (1696-1743), Memoirs, 1848. Vol. i., pp. 23-25.
No man ever was blessed with a clearer head, a truer or quicker judgment, or a deeper insight into mankind; he knew the strength and weakness of everybody he had to deal with, and how to make his advantage of both; he had more warmth of affection and friendship for some particular people than one could have believed it possible for any one who had been so long raking in the dirt of mankind to be capable of feeling for so worthless a species of animals. One should naturally have imagined that the contempt and distrust he must have had for the species in gross, would have given him at least an indifference and distrust towards every particular. Whether his negligence of his enemies, and never stretching his power to gratify his resentment of the sharpest injury, was policy or constitution, I shall not determine: but I do not believe anybody who knows these times will deny that no minister ever was more outraged, or less apparently revengeful. Some of his friends, who were not unforgiving themselves, nor very apt to see imaginary faults in him, have condemned this easiness in his temper as a weakness that has often exposed him to new injuries, and given encouragement to his adversaries to insult him with impunity. Brigadier Churchill, a worthy and good-natured, friendly, and honourable man, who had lived Sir Robert's intimate friend for many years, and through all the different stages of his power and retirement, prosperity and disgrace, has often said that Sir Robert Walpole was so little able to resist the show of repentance in those from whom he had received the worst usage, that a few tears and promises of amendment have often washed out the stains even of ingratitude.
In all occurrences, and at all times, and in all difficulties, he was constantly present and cheerful; he had very little of what is generally called insinuation, and with which people are apt to be taken for the present, without being gained; but no man ever knew better among those he had to deal with who was to be had, on what terms, by what methods, and how the acquisitions would answer. He was not one of those projecting systematical great geniuses who are always thinking in theory, and are above common practice: he had been too long conversant in business not to know that in the fluctuation of human affairs and variety of accidents to which the best concerted schemes are liable, they must often be disappointed who build on the certainty of the most probable events; and therefore seldom turned his thoughts to the provisional warding off future evils which might or might not happen; or the scheming of remote advantages, subject to so many intervening crosses; but always applied himself to the present occurrence, studying and generally hitting upon the properest method to improve what was favourable, and the best expedient to extricate himself out of what was difficult. There never was any minister to whom access was so easy and so frequent, nor whose answers were more explicit. He knew how to oblige when he bestowed, and not to shock when he denied: to govern without oppression, and conquer without triumph. He pursued his ambition without curbing his pleasures, and his pleasures without neglecting his business; he did the latter with ease, and indulged himself in the other without giving scandal or offence. In private life, and to all who had any dependence upon him, he was kind and indulgent; he was generous without ostentation, and an economist without penuriousness; not insolent in success, nor irresolute in distress; faithful to his friends, and not inveterate to his foes.
II.
By Horace Walpole.
Source.—Horace Walpole's Reminiscences, Works, 1798. Vol. iv., p. 271.
It was an instance of Sir Robert's singular good 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 Robert governed George the first in Latin, the King not speaking English, and his minister not German, nor even French. It was much talked of, that Sir Robert, detecting one of the Hanoverian ministers in some trick or falsehood before the King's face, had the firmness to say to the German, "Mentiris, impudentissime!"