Hare and Bland, who were members of the same foundation, and in every situation of life, showed an affectionate regard for the friends of his early youth. He raised Hare, who afterwards ably distinguished himself in defending the measures of the Whig administration, to the bishopric of Chichester, and promoted Bland to the provostship of Eton College, and deanry of Durham.

On the death of his elder surviving brother, in 1698, becoming heir to the paternal estate, he resigned his scholarship on the 25th of May. He had been originally designed for the church, and was frequently heard to say, with the confidence which characterises an aspiring mind, that if such a destination had taken place, instead of being prime minister, he should have been archbishop of Canterbury. Fortunately the superstructure of his education was completed before the death of his brother; for after that event he relapsed into his natural indolence, and the impulse of necessity being removed, no longer continued to prosecute his studies for the purpose of pursuing a liberal profession. His father also assisted in withdrawing him from literary occupations. He immediately took his son from the university, endeavoured to fix him in the country, and made him attend to the improvement of his estate with that view he employed him once a week, in superintending the sale of his cattle at the neighbouring towns, and seemed ambitious that his son should become the first grazier in the country. His father was of

a jovial disposition, and often pushed to excess the pleasures of the table: the hospitable mansion of Houghton was much frequented by the neighbouring gentry, and the convivial temper of Walpole accorded with the scenes of rustic jollity. At these meetings the father occasionally supplied his glass with a double portion of wine, adding, "Come Robert, you shall drink twice, while I drink once: for I will not permit the son, in his sober senses, to be witness to the intoxication of his father." His mornings being thus engaged in the occupations of farming, or in the sports of the field, of which he was always extremely fond, and his evenings passed in festive society, he had no leisure for literary pursuits.

On the 30th of July, 1700, he married, in Knightsbridge Chapel,* Catherine, daughter of Sir John Shorter, lord mayor of London, a woman of exquisite beauty and accomplished manners; and the amusements of London succeeded the more active employments of the country. On the 28th of November, 1700, his father died, and Walpole inherited the family estate, the rent-roll of which exceeded £.2,000 a year.

It was charged with his mother's join

Register of Knightsbridge Chapel, which the reverend D. Lysons, the learned author of the Environs of London, was so obliging as to search at my request.

+ Among the Orford Papers is a document in the hand-writing of his Father, showing the amount of the estate, of which the substance is submitted to the reader, as a proof that the reproaches cast

ture, and with the fortunes of the younger children which amounted to £.9,000. His wife's dowry discharged this incumbrance, and his mother's jointure fell in by her death in 1711.

The death of his father threw him into the busy scenes of public life, when the violent spirit of party gave an impulse to his political exertions; at the moment when the demise of Charles the Second, king of Spain, fixed the attention of Europe, and excited general apprehensions in England, lest the united dominions of the whole Spanish monarchy should center in a prince of the house of Bourbon.

upon him by his opponents, of being a needy adventurer, were unfounded.

June 9, 1700. A particular of my estate within the county of Norfolk, as it is now let:

CHAPTER 2.

1700-1701.

Elected Member of Parliament-Sketch of the important Transactions during the Two last Parliaments of King William-Act of Settlement in favour of the Protestant Succession and FamilyPrinciples and Conduct of the Leaders at the Revolution-Ineffectual Endeavour of William to extend the Act of Settlement in favour of the Hanover Line, virtually introduced by the Act for disabling Papists-Artful Management of William to procure the Extension of that Act on the Death of the Duke of Gloucester.

ON the decease of his father, Walpole was elected member for Castle Rising, and sat for that borough in the two short parliaments, which were assembled in the two last years of the reign of king William.

The death of Charles the Second, king of Spain, in the month of October, 1700, the acceptance of his testament by Louis the Fourteenth, in breach of the second partition treaty, and the quiet accession of Philip duke of Anjou to the crown of Spain, acknowledged by England and the United Provinces, were events which had preceded the meeting of the parliament in which Walpole first sat. The act of settlement in favour of the electress Sophia; the violent conduct of the Tory house of com

mons in the impeachment of Somers and the Whig lords; the death of James the Second; the acknowledgment of his son as James the Third, by Louis the Fourteenth; the indignation of the English at that event; the successful manœuvres of William to rouse the spirit of the nation against France, and to obtain the concurrence of the Tories to a Continental war; the second grand alliance; the dissolution of the Tory parliament and ministry; the choice of a Whig administration and parliament; the declaration of war against France; the attainder of the pretended prince of Wales; the abjuration oath; the death of William, at the moment when he had given an impulse to the grand combination; were the important events which agitated the public mind during the two last parliaments of his reign. To give a detail of these complicated and interesting transactions is not the province of a writer of memoirs, but must be left to the historian of the times; unless they influenced the future conduct and policy of the Minister, whose life I am attempting to delineate. With this view, it may not be improper to state the circumstances which preceded and accompanied the passing of the act of settlement, and induced all parties to adopt that measure, which secured to the house of Hanover the throne of Great Britain, and had so strong and permanent an influence on the subsequent conduct of Walpole.

When the arbitrary conduct of James the