hown to be one of the leading delinquents. Mr. Craggs, the
father, Postmaster-general, and James Craggs, the son, Secretary of
State, were likewise involved. Both were remarkable men. The father had
begun life as a common barber, and partly by capacity and partly by the
thrift that follows fawning, had made his way up in the world until he
reached the height from which he was suddenly and so ignominiously to
fall. It was hardly worth the trouble thus to toil and push and climb,
only to tumble down with such shame and ruin. Craggs the father had had
great transfers of South Sea stock made to him for which he never paid.
Craggs the son, the Secretary of State, had acted as the go-between in
the transactions of the Company with the King's mistresses, whereby the
influence of these ladies was purchased for a handsome consideration.
Charles Stanhope, one of the Secretaries to the Treasury and cousin of
the Minister, was shown to have received large value in the stock of the
Company for which he never paid. The most ghastly ruin fell on some of
these men. Craggs the younger died suddenly on the very day when the
report incriminating him was read in the House of Commons. Craggs the
father poisoned himself a few {198} days afterwards. Pope wrote an
epitaph on the son, in which he described him as--

"Statesman, yet friend of truth; of soul sincere,
In action faithful and in honor clear;
Who broke no promise, served no private end,
Who gained no title, and who lost no friend."

Epitaphs seem to have been genuine tributes of personal friendship in
those days; they had no reference to merit or to truth. One's friend had
every virtue because he was one's friend. Secret committees might
condemn, Parliament might degrade, juries might convict, impartial
history might stigmatize, but one's friend remained one's friend all the
same; and if one had the gift of verse, was to be held up to the
admiration of time and eternity in a glorifying epitaph. We have fallen
on more prosaic days now; the living admirer of a modern Craggs would
leave his epitaph unwritten if he could not make facts and feelings fit
better in together.

[Sidenote: 1721--Death of Stanhope]

A better and more eminent man than Aislabie or either Craggs lost his
life in consequence of the South Sea calamity. No one had accused, or
even suspected, Lord Stanhope of any share in the financial swindle.
Even the fact that his cousin was one of those