Notes

115 What our author’s opinion was of the famous minister here pointed at may be learned from that essay, printed in the former editions, under the title of “A Character of Sir Robert Walpole.” It was as follows:—“There never was a man whose actions and character have been more earnestly and openly canvassed than those of the present minister, who, having governed a learned and free nation for so long a time, amidst such mighty opposition, may make a large library of what has been written for and against him, and is the subject of above half the paper that has been blotted in the nation within these twenty years. I wish, for the honour of our country, that any one character of him had been drawn with such judgment and impartiality as to have credit with posterity, and to show that our liberty has, once at least, been employed to good purpose. I am only afraid of failing in the former quality of judgment; but if it should be so, it is but one page more thrown away, after a hundred thousand, upon the same subject, that have perished and become useless. In the meantime, I shall flatter myself with the pleasing imagination that the following character will be adopted by future historians:—