red himself behind the corner of a pension to sneer at the
tragi-comedy of life; but if his feelings were not profound, they were
quick and genuine, and, affectation for affectation, his cynical
coxcombry seems preferable to the solemn coxcombry of the men who
shamelessly wrangled for plunder, while they talked solemn platitudes
about sacred Whig principles and the thrice blessed British
Constitution.

Walpole, in fact, represents a common creed amongst comfortable but
clear-headed men of his time. It was the strange mixture of scepticism
and conservatism which is exemplified in such men as Hume and Gibbon. He
was at heart a Voltairian, and, like his teacher, confounded all
religions and political beliefs under the name of superstition. Voltaire
himself did not anticipate the Revolution to which he, more than any
man, had contributed. Walpole, with stronger personal reasons than
Voltaire for disliking a catastrophe, was as furious as Burke when the
volcano burst forth. He was a republican so far as he disbelieved in the
divine right of kings, and hated enthusiasm and loyalty generally. He
wished the form to survive and the spirit to disappear. Things were
rotten, and he wished them to stay rotten. The ideal to which he is
constantly recurring was the pleasant reign of his father, when nobody
made a fuss or went to war, or kept principles except for sale. He
foresaw, however, far better than most men, the coming crash. If
political sagacity be fairly tested by a prophetic vision of the French
Revolution, Walpole's name should stand high. He visited Paris in 1765,
and remarks that laughing is out of fashion. 'Good folks, they have no
time to laugh. There is God and the King to be pulled down first, and
men and women, one and all, are devoutly employed in the demolition.
They think me quite profane for having any belief left.' Do you know, he
asks presently, who are the philosophers? 'In the first place, it
comprehends almost everybody, and in the next it means men who, avowing
war against Papacy, aim, many of them, at the destruction of regal
power. The philosophers,' he goes on, 'are insupportable, superficial,
overbearing, and fanatic. They preach incessantly, and their avowed
doctrine is atheism--you could not believe how openly. Don't wonder,
therefore, if I should return a Jesuit. Voltaire himself does not
satisfy them. One of their lady devotees said of him, "_Il est bigot,
c'est un deiste!_"' French politics, he pr