with the French, and would not let himself be goaded into one by all the murmurs of his subordinate, the Duke of Bevern. This general actually sent letters to Vienna describing the Prince as in his dotage, and Charles VI. sent spies to report, but no such thing could be proved, and Eugene held the French armies in check with all his old ability.

Charles had hoped for aid from England, and a Jacobite fugitive, the Abbé Strickland, who had become a spy for any government that would employ him, was sent to find out if anything would induce the English to assist her ally. The English envoy at Vienna asked how the Austrian court could send such a person, and the Empress, Elizabeth Christina of Brunswick, answered, "When one is drowning one catches at a straw." However, the straw was of no service, and Queen Caroline sent him away with a private letter to the Empress, telling her that England was determined not to enter upon a war.

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The Emperor could not help consenting to allow the English and Dutch to propose terms of peace after all his losses. France, though victorious, had lost her best generals, and the Cardinal was always on the side of peace. The final decision was that Frederick Augustus of Saxony should keep Poland, but that Stanislas should have his title and estates. Moreover, that he should receive the Duchy of Lorraine, and bequeath it to his daughter and grandson, so that it might become annexed to France in another generation. The young duke Francis of Lorraine and his brother would have ample compensation for losing Lotharingia," the portion of Lothar, the Karling from whom they were directly descended, for they were betrothed to Maria Theresa and her sister, the daughters of Charles VI., and thus, by the Pragmatic Sanction, would obtain the hereditary dominions of Austria, with hopes of bringing the Karling race back again to the Empire. Maria Theresa was by this time eighteen years old, and devotedly in love with her Francis. She was very able and high spirited, and her persuasions had great influence on her father. Francis, moreover, was to become Grand Duke of Tuscany on the death of the reigning prince, the last of the Medici, while Don Carlos retained Naples and Sicily. Immediately after the conclusion of the peace, Maria Theresa was married to Francis of Lorraine on the 12th of February, 1736. They were deeply attached with a love that never wavered nor wore out.

In the midst of the festivities, Prince Eugene died suddenly in the night. He had, except during his brief campaign on the Rhine, been living a quiet beneficent life at Vienna, amusing himself with his museum, with writing his own memoirs, and superintending the works on which he employed the starving poor. He was so good a master that his servants grew old in his house, and in his last year, the united ages of himself, his coachman, and two footmen amounted to three hundred and ten years. He was the only person in the Court who had any real good sense except the young Archduchess, and the English envoy wrote to Walpole that during his last two years even the remainder of what he had been kept things in some order, as his very

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CAMEO XXXIV.

Lorraine ceded to France.

1736.

yes or no, during his sounder age, had kept them in the best." He was found dead in his bed, at the age of seventy-three.

Every honour was paid to him. His body was embalmed, and his heart sent to be buried in the tomb of his Savoyard ancestors at Turin. He lay in state for three days, with helmet, coat of mail, and gauntlets over head, and was buried at St. Stephen's Cathedral at Vienna, with the honours of one of the Imperial family. "Our good Prince Eugene," as Southey deservedly makes the old peasant of Hochstadt call him, was probably the last person of note who could recollect Louis XIV., in the midst of the false glory, at which he had sickened, and from which he had fled. We know him best as the generous friend of Marlborough; and truly the possession of rare qualities was proved by his entire absence of jealousy of a man far inferior to him in birth, and just enough his superior in military talent, to have been likely to excite the jealousy of a man of a lower nature. Yet, independent as were their commands, they always worked in harmony together, and were throughout instances of noble friendship. Of his other exploits, in the war against the Turks, and the capture of Belgrade, as well as of his brave defence of his ancestral home at Savoy, nothing has been said, as these are scarcely linked with English history, but there are few nobler names among the men of the eighteenth century than that of Eugenio von Savoie, as he used to sign himself, to show that he belonged to three nations.

CAROLINE of Anspach, who must have been nearly the cleverest woman in Europe, had made up her mind that Sir Robert Walpole was the one man who could guide the affairs of the nation, and that George II. must be made to support him; and, be it remembered, it was still on the will of the sovereign, not on that of the House of Commons, nor on that of their constituents, that a Ministry depended.

Robert Walpole, born in 1676, was the son of the Norfolk Squire of Houghton. He owed his education to the fact of his being third in the family, and, therefore, intended to be provided for in the Church; but before his course at the University was over, both his elder brothers died, and he came home to lead the typical country squire's life of the later seventeenth century, when freedom from disloyal Puritanism was supposed to be evinced by coarse riot and rude ignorance. "Drink twice, Robin, while I drink once," said old Mr. Walpole; "I cannot have my son sober to look on at me." Nor did Robert, though of considerable intellect and ability, ever rise in tone of nature above the slough of Houghton, though the training enabled him to drink heavily without even showing the effects.

He had ambition, and after his father's death, and his own marriage with a city lady, he entered Parliament in 1700, at twenty-four years of age, and soon made his mark enough to be noticed by Godolphin, and employed by him. Sharing the fall of the Whigs, he again shared their promotion, fell with Townshend, but by and by came back into office and showed his full talent by steering the Government through the perils of the South Sea Bubble.

Thenceforth it was he who ruled England. His industry was indefatigable, his ability and resource astonishing, and he maintained to the

CAMEO XXXV.

Walbole.

1727.

CAMEO XXXV.

Queen Caroline.

1727.

utmost the power, welfare, and peace of England. But his public conscience was better than his private one, and that is not saying much for it. In character he never rose above the gross, unscrupulous, country squire, though he was kindly, upright, and public-spirited, really loving his country, deserving the respect of foreign nations, the confidence of the Queen, and the love of his dilettante son, Horace, his opposite in all things.

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He ruled by the influence of the Queen, and by unblushing bribery of the members of Parliament, who thought it their due to find the value of their votes in guineas or orders under their plates when they dined with him. Every man has his price" is a saying attributed to him, and in some degree his power was founded on the good sense of the nation. For it was felt that affairs went well in his hands; critical situations did not result in wars, the finances were prosperous, and Jacobite plots were prevented, so that the country was fairly contented.

There was a low standard prevailing. Walpole had little or no religion, and dreaded Church influence as being first Tory and then Jacobite, and his appointments were, as far as possible, of men who would be useful to Government, or at any rate, not averse. Even collections in churches were discouraged, lest they should be applied to the benefit of the Stuarts; zeal was treated as a dangerous quality, and in the fashionable world there was a certain dabbling with philosophy. Some good old customs were still kept up by old-fashioned clergy and Church people, but in general, society was godless, thoughtless, and coarse to an inconceivable degree, intoxication almost the rule with gentlemen. The Court set no good example. The King really seems to have preferred Queen Caroline to every one else, and her imperturbable good nature bore with whatever he chose to do; but both seem to have thought that maîtresses en titre, after the example of Madame de la Vallière and Madame de Montespan, were natural appendages to a king, and so first Mrs. Howard, Countess of Suffolk, and afterwards Madame de Walmoden, Countess of Yarmouth, were recognised favourites.

In fact, Caroline was never sorry to have the King off her hands, provided that the real management of affairs and full influence remained to her. The King, though really far from despicable in his public capacity, was at home a little domestic tyrant, of very small mind and inferior tastes, while Caroline was a woman of remarkable intelligence, full of interest in everything around her, and much enjoying conversation and discussion, especially on philosophy, metaphysics, and theology, though she was herself by no means a religious woman. Lord Hervey, the eldest son of the Marquis of Bristol, and one of the gentlemen of the Court, has left very curious sketches of the life there. He was in great favour, and it was thought that there was some attachment between him and Caroline, the youngest of the three princesses. Anne, the eldest of the three, married the Prince of Orange, who was dull and slightly deformed, avowedly because she did not want to be left to the mercies of her brother, Frederick, Prince of Wales, a man of surly temper and

evil habits, whom every one disliked. One bone of contention was that he insisted that his sisters should be called, like all royal maidens down to Charles I.'s time, the Lady Anne, the Lady Amelia, the Lady Caroline, instead of Princesses after the German fashion; he seems to have been sullen and dissipated, inclined to do whatever he could to vex and annoy his father and mother. That George II. was a very provoking person there can be no doubt. He was small of stature, and wont to assert his dignity by strutting about and making fretful complaints and arbitrary orders. Lord Hervey gives a scene from one of the domestic evenings, when the King broke in upon an interesting discussion of the Queen upon an argument with Bishop Hoadley, to scold over an exchange of some vile Dutch daubs in the apartments for better pictures, and then to walk up and down growling at everything, while the Queen, after an attempt or two to change the current of his thoughts and divert his ill-humour, sat silent, knitting fast and nervously.

One of the most amusing and audacious scenes is what Lord Hervey seems to have actually written and sent to the royal family, describing their manner of reception of the tidings of his own supposed murder by highwaymen, all given dramatically, at the Queen's toilette, while in the anteroom two chaplains are reading through the Litany for the supposed benefit of herself and her ladies, and she bids Lady Sundon to shut a little door so that "those creatures may not interrupt her with their noise, yet not so much as to make them think themselves shut out.

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The Queen gives a few kind words of regret, and scolds her daughter, Princess Emily, for laughing, all interspersed with calls to her angel, her soul, Mrs. Purcel, for her chocolate.

Princess Caroline is evidently really sorry, for not only does she defend poor Lord Hervey, but she incurs a reproof for almost twisting off the thumbs of her gloves.

Sir Robert Walpole pronounces that "whatever faults he might have, there was a great deal of good stuff in him;" but all is brought to a conclusion when Lord Grantham (a German) hurries in with

"Ah! dere is my Lord Hervey in your Majesty's gallery. He is in de frock and de bob, or he should have come in."

"You are mad," says the Queen; but Lord Grantham repeats— "He is dere, all so live as he was, and has played de trick to see what we all should say."

Caroline's happiest times were when she was left as Regent while her husband was in Hanover, which he so much preferred to England.

There were troubles in her regencies. In 1736, gin-drinking had terribly increased in London. On to the seventeenth century, spirits had been little used except as medicine; but about that time Geneva water, as gin is properly called, began to be commonly used by the intemperate of the lower classes in London. No one who has ever seen Hogarth's print of "Gin Lane," with its horrid spectres, can forget its miseries and demoralisation. To check the traffic, the justices of

CAMEO XXXV.

Lord Hervey. 1730.