everell, an orator whose great parliamentary
abilities were, many years later, a favourite theme of old men who lived
to see the conflicts of Walpole and Pulteney. [638] With these eminent
persons was joined Sir Robert Clayton, the wealthiest merchant of
London, whose palace in the Old Jewry surpassed in splendour the
aristocratical mansions of Lincoln's Inn Fields and Covent Garden, whose
villa among the Surrey hills was described as a garden of Eden, whose
banquets vied with those of Kings, and whose judicious munificence,
still attested by numerous public monuments, had obtained for him in
the annals of the City a place second only to that of Gresham. In the
Parliament which met at Oxford in 1681, Clayton had, as member for the
capital, and at the request of his constituents, moved for leave to
bring in the Bill of Exclusion, and had been seconded by Lord Russell.
In 1685 the City, deprived of its franchises and governed by the
creatures of the court, had returned four Tory representatives. But the
old charter had now been restored; and Clayton had been again chosen by
acclamation. [639] Nor must John Birch be passed over. He had begun
life as a carter, but had, in the civil wars, left his team, had
turned soldier, had risen to the rank of Colonel in the army of the
Commonwealth, had, in high fiscal offices, shown great talents for
business, had sate many years in Parliament, and, though retaining to
the last the rough manners and plebeian dialect of his youth, had, by
strong sense and mother wit, gained the ear of the Commons, and was
regarded as a formidable opponent by the most accomplished debaters of
his time. [640] These were the most conspicuous among the veterans who
now, after a long seclusion, returned to public life. But they were all
speedily thrown into the shade by two younger Whigs, who, on this great
day, took their seats for the first time, who soon rose to the highest
honours of the state, who weathered together the fiercest storms of
faction, and who, having been long and widely renowned as statesmen, as
orators, and as munificent patrons of genius and learning, died, within
a few months of each other, soon after the accession of the House of
Brunswick. These were Charles Montague and John Somers.

One other name must be mentioned, a name then known only to a small
circle of philosophers, but now pronounced beyond the Ganges and the
Mississippi with reverence exceeding that which is paid to the memo