; let us take what we can get, and leave these bawling,
brawling, lying English to shout, and fight, and cheat, in their own way!"

If Swift had not been committed to the statesmen of the losing side, what
a fine satirical picture we might have had of that general _sauve qui
peut_ amongst the Tory party! How mum the Tories became; how the House of
Lords and House of Commons chopped round; and how decorously the
majorities welcomed King George!

Bolingbroke, making his last speech in the House of Lords, pointed out the
shame of peerage, where several lords concurred to condemn in one general
vote all that they had approved in former Parliaments by many particular
resolutions. And so their conduct was shameful. St. John had the best of
the argument, but the worst of the vote. Bad times were come for him. He
talked philosophy, and professed innocence. He courted retirement, and was
ready to meet persecution; but, hearing that honest Mat Prior, who had
been recalled from Paris, was about to peach regarding the past
transactions, the philosopher bolted, and took that magnificent head of
his out of the ugly reach of the axe. Oxford, the lazy and good-humoured,
had more courage, and awaited the storm at home. He and Mat Prior both had
lodgings in the Tower, and both brought their heads safe out of that
dangerous menagerie. When Atterbury was carried off to the same den a few
years afterwards, and it was asked, what next should be done with him?
"Done with him? Fling him to the lions," Cadogan said, Marlborough's
lieutenant. But the British lion of those days did not care much for
drinking the blood of peaceful peers and poets, or crunching the bones of
bishops. Only four men were executed in London for the rebellion of 1715;
and twenty-two in Lancashire. Above a thousand taken in arms, submitted to
the king's mercy, and petitioned to be transported to his Majesty's
colonies in America. I have heard that their descendants took the loyalist
side in the disputes which arose sixty years after. It is pleasant to find
that a friend of ours, worthy Dick Steele, was for letting off the rebels
with their lives.

As one thinks of what might have been, how amusing the speculation is! We
know how the doomed Scottish gentlemen came out at Lord Mar's summons,
mounted the white cockade, that has been a flower of sad poetry ever
since, and rallied round the ill-omened Stuart standard at Braemar. Mar,
with 8,000 men, and but 1,500 opposed to