In his Memoirs, indeed, where in no instance but one he ever confers praise unmixed with censure, he bestows on Mr. Winnington the character of being one “whom it was impossible to hate or to trust;” and, in a subsequent passage, he describes him “as perniciously witty, affecting an honesty in avowing whatever was dishonourable.” But, in his private correspondence, written immediately after the sudden and melancholy death of Mr. Winnington,[8] he calls him one of the first men in England, and adds, “I was familiarly acquainted with him, loved and admired him, for he had great good-nature, and a quickness of wit most peculiar to himself; and for his public talents he has left nobody equal to him, as before nobody was superior to him but my father.”
With Mr. Fox he appears to have lived on the most confidential terms, till that gentleman accepted the Seals in 1755 under the Duke of Newcastle. Mr. Walpole, whose inveteracy to the Pelhams was unabated, could not pardon in his father’s friend, a connexion with the man whom he regarded as the chief traitor in the accomplishment of his father’s ruin. The step too was taken without consulting him. This added to his indignation; and from that time, though he continued in habits of intimacy with Mr. Fox, he became cold to his interests, and, by his own account, was, on one important occasion, active and successful in traversing his designs.
He was, in truth, during the whole of his public life, too much under the guidance of personal feelings and resentments, and too apt to sacrifice his friendships to his aversions; and as the latter were often excited by trivial and accidental causes, his political conduct, though unexceptionable on the score of interest or ambition, was fluctuating and uncertain, and his judgment of men variable and capricious. The affair of Admiral Byng, in which he took a part that does credit to his feelings and humanity, completed his estrangement from Mr. Fox. He animadverts with great severity on the cruelty of obstructing an irregular application for mercy with the view of embarrassing an Administration. The questionable conduct of Mr. Fox on that occasion seems to have deserved some such censure; but Mr. Walpole betrays his own partiality by the comparative tenderness with which he treats the Ministers themselves. They had it in their power to save Admiral Byng, and justice as well as humanity required them to exert it if they thought him either injured or innocent. Yet they chose to sign the warrant for his execution rather than incur the odium with the King or the public of insisting on his pardon.
About the time of his separation from Mr. Fox, Mr. Walpole appears to have lost the influence he had acquired over the Duke of Bedford through the intervention of Mr. Rigby; and during the latter part of these Memoirs, detached from all political intimacies, he seems to have had no better means of information than might have been possessed by any other industrious and attentive member of the House of Commons.
On the merits of the present work it would be improper to enlarge in this place. That it contains much curious and original information will not be disputed. The intimacy which the Author enjoyed with many of the chief personages of the times, and what he calls, “his propensity to faction,” made him acquainted with the most secret intrigues and negotiations of parties; and where his resentments did not cloud his judgment, his indifference to the common objects of ambition rendered him an impartial spectator of their quarrels and accommodations. The period of which he treats was not distinguished by splendid virtues or great vices, by extraordinary events or great revolutions; but it is a part of our history little known to us, and not undeserving our curiosity, as it forms the transition from the expiring struggles of Jacobitism to the more important contests that have since engaged, and still occupy our attention.
The account of Parliamentary Debates in these Memoirs would alone be a valuable addition to our history. No one is ignorant, that from the fall of Sir Robert Walpole to the American war, our reports of the proceedings in Parliament are more barren and unsatisfactory than at any period since the reign of James the First. For the last ten years of George the Second, Mr. Walpole has supplied that deficiency in a manner equally entertaining and instructive. His method was to make notes of each speaker’s argument during the Debate, and frequently to take down his expressions. He afterwards wrote out the speeches at greater length, and described the impression they made on the House. The anecdotes interspersed in the work are numerous, and, from the veracity of the Author, when they are founded on his personal knowledge, they may always be received as authentic. When derived from others, or from the common rumour of the day, he gives his authority for them, and enables his readers to judge of the credibility they deserve.
To his portraits it will be objected, that in general they incline to severity, and though he professed, and probably intended the strictest impartiality in his delineations of character, it cannot be denied that they are sometimes heightened by friendship, and more frequently discoloured by resentment; and on many occasions it is evident, that they are dictated by the conduct of the persons he describes in the last occurrence that brought them before his eyes, rather than by a steady and comprehensive view of their merits and defects. His observations on the Cavendishes may be taken as an illustration of this remark. He seldom mentions the two Dukes of Devonshire, who flourished in his time, without some sneer or malignant reflection. The truth was, that notwithstanding his Whiggism, he held all the members of that family in detestation, on account of the part they had taken against him on his breach with his uncle Lord Walpole. Yet, within a few years after the conclusion of these Memoirs, when William, fourth Duke of Devonshire, had bequeathed five thousand pounds to his friend Mr. Conway, in approbation of his public conduct, he uses the following exaggerated expressions in speaking of the legacy.
“You might despise,” he writes to Mr. Conway,[9] “the acquisition of five thousand pounds simply; but when that sum is a public testimonial to your virtue, and bequeathed by a man so virtuous, it is worth a million. Who says virtue is not rewarded in this world? It is rewarded by virtue, and persecuted by the bad: can greater honour be paid to it?”
There are, indeed, few persons in his Memoirs, of whom he does not vary his opinion in the course of his work. Marshal Conway, the Pelhams, and Lord Hardwicke, are almost the only exceptions. He always speaks of Marshal Conway with affection and respect; of Mr. Pelham with dislike; of Lord Hardwicke with hatred; and of the Duke of Newcastle with contempt and aversion. Of other persons mentioned in his book, there is scarcely any strong expression of commendation or censure, which in some subsequent passage he does not qualify, soften, or contradict. It is a proof, however, of his fairness, at least of his desire to give his readers the impression he formed at the time of the personages and transactions he describes, that even when he changed his opinion, he allowed his original account to remain, leaving it to be effaced in the minds of others, as it was not unfrequently in his own, by subsequent reflections and events. In some instances, but rarely, he subjoins a note correcting his first impression: more frequently he only intimates to his readers his change of sentiment by the difference of his language with respect to the person he had before described. In his Memoirs of 1752, for example, he characterizes Lord George Sackville as a man “of distinguished bravery,” and that passage he has left as originally written, though after the battle of Minden he appears to have had more than doubts of Lord George’s courage. He was, in truth, as he says of himself, a bitter, but placable enemy, a warm, but (one instance only excepted) an inconstant friend.
It remains only to say a few words of the labours of the Editor. He has added some notes marked (E), and in some very few instances added or altered a word for the sake of delicacy or perspicuity. On such occasions the word added, or substituted, is printed between brackets of this shape [ ].