think a ploughman who sows, reads his almanack, and believes
that the stars are so many farthing candles created to prevent his
falling into a ditch as he goes home at night, a wiser and more rational
being, and I am sure an honester, than any of them. Oh! I am sick of
visions and systems that shove one another aside, and come again like
figures in a moving picture.' Probably Walpole's belief in the ploughman
lasted till he saw the next smock-frock; but the bitterness clothed in
the old-fashioned cant is serious and is justifiable enough. Here is a
picture of English politics in the time of Wilkes. 'No government, no
police, London and Middlesex distracted, the colonies in rebellion,
Ireland ready to be so, and France arrogant and on the point of being
hostile! Lord Bute accused of all, and dying in a panic; George
Grenville wanting to make rage desperate; Lord Rockingham and the
Cavendishes thinking we have no enemies but Lord Bute, and that five
mutes and an epigram can set everything to rights; the Duke of Grafton
(then Prime Minister) like an apprentice, thinking the world should be
postponed to a horse-race; and the Bedfords not caring what disgraces we
undergo while each of them has 3,000_l._ a year and three thousand
bottles of claret and champagne!' And every word of this is true--at
least, so far as epigrams need be true. It is difficult to put into more
graphic language the symptoms of an era just ripe for revolution. If
frivolous himself, Walpole can condemn the frivolity of others. 'Can one
repeat common news with indifference,' he asks, just after the surrender
of Yorktown, 'while our shame is writing for future history by the pens
of all our numerous enemies? When did England see two whole armies lay
down their arms and surrender themselves prisoners?... These are
thoughts I cannot stifle at the moment that expresses them; and, though
I do not doubt that the same dissipation that has swallowed up all our
principles will reign again in ten days with its wonted sovereignty, I
had rather be silent than vent my indignation. Yet I cannot talk, for I
cannot think, on any other subject. It was not six days ago that, in the
height of four raging wars (with America, France, Spain, and Holland), I
saw in the papers an account of the opera and of the dresses of the
company, and hence the town, and thence, of course, the whole nation,
were informed that Mr. Fitzpatrick had very little powder in his hair.'
Walpole shelte