gence of Queen Caroline. She saw through all Townshend's
schemes, and took care that they should not succeed. At last the two
rivals quarrelled. Their quarrel broke out very openly, in the
drawing-room of a lady, and in the presence of several distinguished
{304} persons. From hot words they were going on to a positive
personal struggle, when the spectators at last intervened to "pluck
them asunder," in the words of the King in "Hamlet." They were plucked
asunder, and then there was talk of a duel. The friends of both
succeeded in preventing this scandal, but the brothers-in-law were
never thoroughly reconciled, and after a short time Lord Townshend
resigned his office. He withdrew from public life altogether, and
devoted his remaining years to the enjoyment of the country and the
cultivation of agriculture. It is to his credit that when once he had
given way to the superior influence of Walpole, he did not afterwards
cabal against him, or try to injure him, according to the fashion of
the statesmen of the time. On the contrary, when he was once pressed
to join in an attack on Walpole's ministry, he firmly refused to do
anything of the kind. He said he had resolved to take no further part
in political contests, and he did not mean to break his resolution. He
was particularly determined not to depart from his resolve in this
case, he explained, because his temper was hot, and he was apprehensive
that he might be hurried away by personal resentment to take a course
which in his cooler moments he should have to regret. Nothing in his
public life, perhaps, became him so well as his dignified conduct in
his retirement. His place in history is not strongly marked; in this
history we shall not hear of him any more.

[Sidenote: 1730--Signs of change in foreign policy]

Colonel Stanhope, who had made the Treaty of Seville, and had been
raised to the peerage as Lord Harrington for his services, succeeded
Townshend as Secretary of State. Horace Walpole, the brother of
Robert, was at his own request recalled from Paris. Walpole, the
Prime-minister, had begun to see that it would be necessary for the
future to have something like a good understanding with Austria. The
friendship with France had been a priceless advantage in its time, but
Walpole believed that it had served its turn. It was valuable to
England chiefly because it had enabled the Sovereign to keep {305} the
movements of the Stuart party in check, and