passing such a judgment we should remember that the names by
which people classify their opinions are generally little more than
arbitrary badges; and even in these days, when practice treads so
closely on the heels of theory, some persons profess to know extreme
radicals who could be converted very speedily by a bit of riband.
Walpole has explained himself with unmistakable frankness, and his
opinion was at least intelligible. He was not a republican after the
fashion of Robespierre, or Jefferson, or M. Gambetta; but he had some
meaning. When a duke in those days proposed annual parliaments and
universal suffrage, we may assume that he did not realise the probable
effect of those institutions upon dukes; and when Walpole applauded the
regicides, he was not anxious to send George III. to the block. He
meant, however, that he considered George III. to be a narrow-minded and
obstinate fool. He meant, too, that the great Revolution families ought
to distribute the plunder and the power without interference from the
Elector of Hanover. He meant, again, that as a quick and cynical
observer, he found the names of Brutus and Algernon Sidney very
convenient covers for attacking the Duke of Newcastle and the Earl of
Bute. But beyond all this, he meant something more, which gives the
real spice to his writings. It was something not quite easy to put into
formulas; but characteristic of the vague discomfort of the holders of
sinecures in those halcyon days arising from the perception that the
ground was hollow under their feet. To understand him we must remember
that the period of his activity marks precisely the lowest ebb of
political principle. Old issues had been settled, and the new ones were
only just coming to the surface. He saw the end of the Jacobites and the
rise of the demagogues. His early letters describe the advance of the
Pretender to Derby; they tell us how the British public was on the whole
inclined to look on and cry, 'Fight dog, fight bear;' how the Jacobites
who had anything to lose left their battle to be fought by half-starved
cattle-stealers, and contented themselves with drinking to the success
of the cause; and how the Whig magnates, with admirable presence of
mind, raised regiments, appointed officers, and got the expenses paid by
the Crown. His later letters describe the amazing series of blunders by
which we lost America in spite of the clearest warnings from almost
every man of sense in the kingdom. T