o him, is of itself a tribute to
his impartiality and his services. Onslow was a man who loved letters
and art, and also, it is said, loved studying all varieties of life. It
is reported of him that he used to go about disguised, like a sort of
eighteenth-century Haroun-al-Raschid, among the lowest classes of men, in
out-of-the-way parts of the capital, for the purpose of studying the
forms and manners of human life. Legend has preserved the memory of a
certain public-house, called "The Jews'-harp," where Onslow is said to
have amused himself many an evening, sitting in the chimney-corner and
exchanging talk and jests with the company who frequented the place. It
is pleasant to be able to believe these stories of Speaker Onslow in that
highly artificial and formal age--that age of periwigs and paint and
shallow formulas. It is somewhat refreshing to meet with this clever man
of eccentric ways, the great "Speaker," who could wear his official robes
with so much true dignity, and then, when he had laid them aside, could
amuse himself after his own fashion, and study life in some of its
queerest corners with the freshness of a school-boy and the eye of an
artist.

{284}

CHAPTER XIX.

"THE PATRIOTS."

[Sidenote: 1728--Pulteney's place in history]

The name and the career of William Pulteney are all but forgotten in
English political life. It is doubtful whether Pulteney's name, if
pronounced in the course of a debate in the House of Commons just now,
would bring with it any manner of idea to the minds of nine-tenths of
the listening members. Yet Pulteney played, all unconsciously, a great
part in the development of the Parliamentary life of this country. So
far as intellectual gifts are concerned, he is not, of course, to be
named in the same breath with a man like Burke, for example; one might
as well think of comparing Offenbach with Mozart or Handel. But the
influence of the career of Pulteney on the English Parliament is
nevertheless more distinctly marked than the influence of the career of
Burke. We are speaking now not of political thought--no man ever made
a greater impression on political thought than Burke has done--but only
of the forms and the development of English Parliamentary systems. For
Pulteney was, beyond all question, the founder of the modern practice
of Parliamentary opposition. Walpole was mainly instrumental in
transferring the seat of political power from the House of Lords