Caroline the Illustrious, vol. 2 (of 2)

by W. H. Wilkins

English men of letters were not so fortunate as Voltaire in winning the favour of the court. When she was Princess of Wales Caroline made welcome any literary man of eminence to Leicester House whatever his creed or party, Papist or Arian, Jacobite, Whig or Tory. George the First’s contempt for literature made her graciousness the more marked, and perhaps it was her affability and eagerness to please that gave rise to expectations which were later unfulfilled. For it is certain that many eminent writers of prose and verse expected great things when Caroline became Queen; and it is equally certain that they were grievously disappointed. Whether with all the goodwill in the world, and all the power, the Queen could have satisfied every one of them may be doubted, for the literary mind is not prone to underrate its merits. As events turned out she could do little or nothing for any man of letters, unless he were eligible for preferment in the Church. She found herself as Queen in a position of less freedom and greater responsibility. She was as anxious as ever to befriend literary men, but in this respect she found herself thwarted by the King and opposed by Walpole; her difficulties too were increased by the fact that nearly every writer of talent was either openly or secretly hostile to the Government.

For this hostility Walpole was to blame; he had inaugurated a new policy. During the reign of William and Anne, and even in the reign of George the First while Townshend and Stanhope were Prime Ministers, literary men were courted and caressed by those in authority. In short it has been well said that “though the Sovereign was never an Augustus every minister was a Mæcenas”. Lucrative places were found for many writers in departments of the civil service, and others were aided to enter Parliament or diplomacy.

But when Walpole became Prime Minister in 1721 he changed all this, and set his face like a flint against employing literary men in the public service in any capacity whatsoever. In this he was supported by George the First, and his successor George the Second, who both despised literature and never opened a book. The number of readers was far more limited then than now (though perhaps they were more discriminating), and writing books was consequently less lucrative. When men of talent and genius saw the avenues of patronage and of usefulness in the State suddenly closed to them by the Prime Minister, it is no wonder that they placed their pens at the service of the Opposition, led as it was by two men so appreciative of the claims of literature as Bolingbroke and Pulteney. But Walpole did not heed, and for twenty years followed the same policy. “No writer need apply” was written over every door that led to preferment in the State. But in the long run the writers had their revenge, and his neglect of the pamphleteers was one of the chief causes that led to Walpole’s fall.

Queen Caroline had promised so fair when Princess of Wales, and her influence over her husband was known to be so great, that many literary men looked forward to her coming to the throne as likely to bring about a revival of the Augustan age of Queen Anne. They were bitterly disappointed when they found her in close accord with the Minister who had slammed the door of patronage in their faces, and many considered that she had betrayed them. They forgot that in an alliance like that between the Queen and Walpole each had to yield something, and the Queen yielded some of her interest in letters for the larger interests she had at stake. It was a pity that with so real a desire to help literature Caroline was able to do so little. It was a still greater pity that after she became Queen her relations with some of the greatest English men of letters, like Swift, Gay and Pope, were strained to breaking point. The fault was not all on her side, and in some cases the breach was inevitable, but it was none the less unfortunate.

MRS. CLAYTON (VISCOUNTESS SUNDON).

Swift, who had fallen with Bolingbroke in 1714, visited England in 1726, for the first time since the death of Queen Anne, probably with the object of effecting a reconciliation with the reigning dynasty. He made the acquaintance of Mrs. Howard through his friends Pope and Gay, and was introduced by her to Caroline, then Princess of Wales. Writing years later to the Duchess of Queensberry, who hated Caroline, Swift declared that “a nameless person” (the Queen) “sent me eleven messages before I would yield her a visit”. This was surely an exaggeration, and it was written at a time when Swift, having lost all hope of preferment from the Queen, was paying his court to the duchess. Swift no doubt was quite as ready to have an audience as Caroline was to grant him one. He began the conversation by saying that he knew the Princess loved to see odd persons, and having seen a wild boy from Germany, he supposed she now had a curiosity to see a wild dean from Ireland. Caroline laughed, and found in his genius an excuse for the lack of courtly manners. He came several times to Leicester House.

Swift returned to Ireland well pleased with his reception, though no definite promise of what he desired, English preferment, had been given him. He came again to England early the following year, 1727, as it proved for the last time. His coming was heralded by the publication of his famous satire, Gulliver’s Travels. Caroline read the book with delight, and when the author presented himself at Leicester House welcomed him most graciously. She accepted from him a present of Irish poplins, and promised him a medallion of herself in return. Swift was also a constant and welcome guest in the apartments of Mrs. Howard, and met there, besides many men of letters, politicians of the stamp of Townshend and Compton. He was in England at the time of George the First’s death, and kissed the hands of the new King and Queen. For a time he was full of hope, but his expectations received a shock when he found Walpole, “Bob the poet’s foe,” confirmed in power. He went back to Ireland, cast down but not dismayed, and waited there for the summons that never came.

For some time the dean placed faith in Mrs. Howard, and more especially in the Queen’s graciousness. He knew also the Queen’s views on Church matters, and his unorthodoxy, which had hindered Anne from making him a bishop, would, he thought, be a point in his favour with Caroline. His commanding literary abilities ought certainly to have given him a strong claim upon her consideration. But Swift, the friend of Bolingbroke, was disliked by Walpole, and Caroline distrusted every one who was intimate with Bolingbroke. Moreover Swift thought, like so many others, that the way to the King’s favour lay through his mistress rather than his wife, and on both his visits to England he paid great court to Mrs. Howard, visiting her frequently, flattering her, telling her some of his best stories, and writing her some of his wittiest letters. Caroline, who knew of this friendship, resented it, and though she gave the great dean audience, and was affable to him as she was to every one, she made a mental note against his name, and never helped him to realise his wish of obtaining English preferment. She had never promised to give it to him, but she had promised to send him her medallion. Swift, who for some time after his return to Ireland, kept up a correspondence with Mrs. Howard, wrote to her recalling the Queen’s promise.

“First, therefore,” he writes, “I call you to witness that I did not attend on the Queen until I had received her repeated messages, which, of course, occasioned my being introduced to you. I never asked anything till, upon leaving England for the first time, I desired from you a present worth a guinea, and from her Majesty one worth ten pounds, by way of a memorial. Yours I received, and the Queen, upon taking my leave of her, made an excuse that she had intended a medal for me, which not being ready, she would send it me the Christmas following: yet this was never done, nor at all remembered when I went back to England the next year, and attended her as I had done before. I must now tell you, madam, that I will receive no medal from her Majesty, nor anything less than her picture at half-length, drawn by Jervas; and if he takes it from another original, the Queen shall at least sit twice for him to touch it up. I desire you will let her Majesty know this in plain words, although I have heard I am under her displeasure....