ms as if they had been
still empty; his presence, that used to make a crowd wherever he
appeared, now emptied every corner he turned to, and the same people
who were officiously a week ago clearing the way to flatter his
prosperity, were now getting out of it to avoid sharing his disgrace.
Everybody looked upon it as sure, and whatever profession of adherence
and gratitude for former favors were made him in private, there were
none among the many his power had obliged (excepting General Churchill
and Lord Hervey) who did not in public as notoriously decline and fear
his notice, as they used industriously to seek and covet it."[107] On
the same occasion, Horace Walpole tells us, "my mother * * * could not
make her way (to pay her respects to the king and queen) between the
scornful backs and elbows of her late devotees, nor could approach
nearer to the queen than the third or fourth row; but no sooner was she
descried by her Majesty, than the queen cried aloud, '_There I am sure
I see a friend!_' The torrent divided and shrunk to either side: 'and
as I came away,' said my mother, 'I might have walked over their heads
if I had pleased.'"[108] The general corruption and wickedness produced
a remarkable misanthropy in the minds of men, which is reflected in the
savage satire of Swift, in the bitter invective of Junius, in the
cynicism of Lord Hervey. Sir Robert Walpole, said the latter, "had more
warmth of affection and friendship for some particular people than one
could have believed it possible for any one who had been so long raking
in the dirt of mankind to be capable of feeling for so worthless a
species of animals. One should naturally have imagined that the
contempt and distrust he must have had for the species in gross, would
have given him at least an indifference and distrust toward every
particular."[109]

The mercenary character of Parliament allowed the first two Georges to
have much their own way as long as the money held out. Liberty of the
subject, if not in great danger, had certainly lost its natural
guardian. Few seats depended on a direct and popular vote. Most of them
were in the gift of noblemen or rich commoners, "rotten boroughs,"
having only "the bare name of a town, of which there remains not so
much as the ruins."[110] Defoe tells us that the market price of a seat
was a thousand guineas. The object of the purchaser was less often the
service of his country, or even an honorable ambition, than th