Walpole had already one rising rival in the person of Lord Carteret, afterwards Earl of Granville. John Carteret was born April 22, 1690, and was only five years old when the death of his father, the first Lord Carteret, made him a member of the House of Lords. He distinguished himself greatly at Oxford, and entered very early into public life. He was from the beginning a favorite of George the First, and by the influence of Stanhope was intrusted with various diplomatic missions of more or less importance. In 1721 he was actually appointed ambassador to the Court of France. The death of Craggs, the Secretary of State, however, made a vacancy in the administration, and the place was at once assigned to Carteret. Carteret was one of those men whose genius we have to believe in rather on the faith of contemporary judgment than by reason of any track of its own it has left behind. The unanimous opinion of all who knew him, and more especially of those who were commonly brought into contact with him, was that Carteret possessed the rarest combination of statesmanlike and literary gifts. Probably no English public man ever exhibited in a higher degree the qualities that bring success in politics and the qualities that bring success in literature. It seems strange to have to say this when one remembers a man like Bolingbroke and a man like Burke; but it is certain that neither Bolingbroke nor Burke could {234} boast of such scholarship and accomplishments as those of Carteret. [Sidenote: 1723—Carteret's German] He was a profound classical scholar; he was a master of French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Swedish. His scientific knowledge was extraordinary for that time; he was a close student of the history of past and passing time; he was deeply interested in constitutional law, and had a passion for Church history. He was a great parliamentary debater—some say he was even a great orator. He was prompt and bold in his decisions; he was not afraid of any enterprise; he was not depressed or abashed by failure; he could take fortune's buffets and rewards with equal thanks. Large brains and small affections are, according to Mr. Disraeli, the essential qualities for success in public life. Carteret had large brains and small affections; he had no friendships and no enmities. Like Fox, he was a bad hater, but, unlike Fox, he had not a heart to love. He was fond of books and of wine and of women; he was a great drinker of wine, even for those days of deep drink. Beneath all the apparent energy and daring of his character there lay a voluptuous love of ease and languor. He was not a lazy man, but his inclination was always to be an indolent man. He leaped up to sudden political action when the call came, like Sardanapalus leaping up to the inevitable fight; but, like Sardanapalus, he would have been always glad to lie down again and loll in ease the moment the necessity for action had passed away. No doubt his daily allowance of Burgundy—a very liberal and generous allowance—had a good deal to do with his tendency to indolence. Whatever the reason, it is certain that, with all his magnificent gifts and his splendid chances, he did nothing great, and has left no abiding mark in history. Every one who came near him seems to have regarded his as a master-spirit. Chesterfield said of him, "When he dies, the ablest head in England dies too, take it for all in all." Horace Walpole declares him to be superior in one set of qualities to his father. Sir Robert Walpole, {235} and in others to the great Lord Chatham. "Why did they send you here?" Swift said to Carteret, with rough good-humor, when Carteret came over to Dublin to be Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. "You are not fit for this place; let them send us back our boobies." Carteret's fame has always seemed to us like the fame of Sheridan's Begum speech. Such poor records as we have of that speech seem hardly to hint at any extraordinary eloquence; yet the absolutely unanimous opinion of all that heard it—of all the orators and statesmen and critics of the time—was that so great a speech had never before been spoken in Parliament. Those men can hardly have been all wrong, one would think; and yet, on the other hand, it is not easy to believe that those who made such record of the speech as we have can have purposely left out all the eloquence, the wit, and the argument. In like manner, readers of this day may perplex themselves about the fame of Carteret. All the men who knew him can hardly have been mistaken when they concurred in giving him credit for surpassing genius; and yet we find no evidence of that genius either in the literature or the political history of England.

Carteret had one great advantage over Walpole and over all his contemporaries in political life—he was able to speak German fluently; he was able to talk for hours with the King in the King's own guttural tongue. The King clung to Carteret's companionship because of his German. While Walpole was trying to instil his policy and counsels into George's mind through the non-conducting medium of very bad Latin, while other ministers were endeavoring to approach the Royal intelligence by means of French, which they spoke badly and he understood imperfectly, Carteret could rattle away in idiomatic German, and could amuse the Royal humor even with voluble German slang. Carteret had come into public life under the influence of Lord Sunderland and Lord Stanhope, and he regarded himself as the successor to their policy. He never considered himself as quite in {236} understanding and harmony with Townshend and Walpole. His principal idea was that the time had passed when it was proper or expedient to exclude the Tories or the High-churchmen from the political service of the Crown. He desired to enlarge the basis of administration by admitting some of the more plastic and progressive of the Tories to a share in it. There was, however, something more than a conflict of political views between Carteret and Walpole. Walpole's ambition was to be the constitution dictator of England. We do not say that this was a mere personal ambition; on the contrary, we believe Walpole acted on the honest conviction that he knew better than any other man how England ought to be governed. He was sure, and reasonably sure, that no other statesman could play the game so well; he therefore claimed the right to play it. Carteret, on the other hand, was far too strong a man to be quietly pushed into the background. He was determined that if he remained in the service of the State he would be a statesman, and not a clerk.

[Sidenote: 1723—A match making intrigue]

Therefore, while Carteret and Walpole were colleagues there was always a struggle going on between them, and, like all the political struggles of the time, it had a great deal of underhand influence, and the worst kind of petticoat influence, engaged in it. One of the King's mistresses—the most influential of them—gave all her support to Walpole; another Royal paramour lent her aid to Carteret's side. Carteret played into the King's hands as regarded the Hanoverian policy, and was for taking strong measures against Russia. Townshend and Walpole would hear of no schemes which threatened to entangle England in war for the sake of Hanoverian interests. George liked Carteret, and was captivated by his policy as well as by his personal qualities, but he could not help seeing that Townshend's advice was the sounder, and that no man could manage the finances like Walpole. George went to Hanover in the summer of 1723, and both the Secretaries of State went with him. This was {237} something unusual, and even unprecedented; but the King would not do without the companionship of Carteret, and knew that he could not do without the advice of Townshend. So both Townshend and Carteret went with his Majesty to Herrenhausen, and Walpole had the whole business of administration in his own hands at home.

A very paltry and pitiful intrigue at length settled the question between Townshend and Carteret. A marriage had been arranged between a niece, or so-called niece, of one of George's mistresses and the son of La Vrillière, the French Secretary of State. Madame La Vrillière insisted, as a condition of the marriage, that her husband should be made a duke, and it was assumed that this could be brought about by the influence of the English Government. King George was anxious that the marriage should take place, and Carteret, of course, was willing to assist him. The English ambassador at the Court of France was a man named Sir Luke Schaub, by birth a Swiss, who had been Stanhope's secretary, and by Stanhope's influence was pushed up in the diplomatic service. Sir Luke Schaub was in close understanding with Carteret, and was strongly hostile to Townshend and Walpole. Of this fact Townshend was well aware, and he took care that Schaub should be closely watched in Paris. Schaub was instructed by Carteret to do all he could in order to obtain the dukedom for Madame La Vrillière's husband. Cardinal Dubois died, and his place in the councils of the Duke of Orleans was taken by Count Nocé, who was believed to be hostile to England. This fact gave Townshend an excuse for suggesting to the King that some one should be sent to Paris to watch over the action of the French Government and the conduct of the English ambassador, "in such a manner," so Townshend wrote from Hanover to Walpole, "as may neither hurt Sir Luke Schaub's credit with the Duke of Orleans, nor create a jealousy in Sir Luke of the King's intending to withdraw his confidence from him." This was, of course, exactly what Townshend wanted to do—to {238} induce the King to withdraw his confidence from poor Sir Luke. The King agreed that it was necessary some one "in whose fidelity and dexterity he can depend" should set out from England to Hanover, "and take Paris on his way hither, under pretence of a curiosity to see that place, and without owning to any one living the business he is employed in." The person selected for this somewhat delicate mission was Horace Walpole, Robert Walpole's only surviving brother.

[Sidenote: 1724—Carteret goes to Ireland]

Horace Walpole acquitted himself very cleverly of the task assigned to him. He was a man of uncouth manners, but of some shrewd ability and of varied experience. He had been a soldier with Stanhope before acting as Under-Secretary of State to Townshend; he had managed to distinguish himself in Parliament and in diplomacy. He soon contrived to obtain the ear of the Duke of Orleans, and he found that Sir Luke Schaub had been deceiving himself and his sovereign about the prospect of La Vrillière's dukedom. Philip of Orleans told Horace Walpole frankly that there never was the slightest idea of giving such a dukedom, and added that the dignity of France would be compromised if such a concession were made in order to enable the King of England "to marry his bastard daughter"—so the Duke put it—into the French noblesse. Sir Luke Schaub's haste and indiscreet zeal had, in fact, brought his sovereign into discredit, and even compromised the good understanding between England and France.

Philip of Orleans died almost immediately. His death was sudden, but he had long run a course which set all laws of health at defiance. He stuck to his pleasures to the very last—died, one might say, in harness. His successor in the administration of France, under the young King Louis the Fifteenth, who had just been declared of age, was the Duke de Bourbon, Philip's equal, perhaps, in profligacy, but not by any means his equal in capacity. Horace Walpole won over the new administrator. The Duke de Bourbon told him that Sir Luke Schaub was {239} obnoxious to every one in the French Court, and that he was not fit, by birth, breeding, or capacity, to represent England there.

We need not follow the intrigue through all its turns and twists. Walpole and Townshend succeeded. Schaub was recalled; Horace Walpole was appointed ambassador in his place. The recall of Schaub involved the fall of Carteret. Carteret, however, was not a man to be rudely thrust out of office, and a soft fall was therefore prepared for him; he was made Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. He knew that he was defeated. Then, as at a later day and at an earlier, the Viceroyalty of Ireland was the gilding which enabled a man to gulp down the bitter pill of political failure. When Lord John Russell obtained the dismissal of Lord Palmerston from his cabinet in 1851, he endeavored, somewhat awkwardly, to soften the blow by offering to his dispossessed rival the position of Lord-lieutenant of Ireland. Lord Palmerston understood the meaning of the offer, and treated it—as was but natural—with open contempt. Carteret acted otherwise. Probably he felt within himself that he was not destined to a great political career. In any case, he accepted the offer with perfect good-humor, declaring that, on the whole, he thought he should be much more pleasantly situated as a dictator in Dublin than as the servant of a dictator in London.

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