English Poetry in the Eighteenth Century [pp. 30-50]

7'HE PRINCE TON RE VIE W.
Pope arrived at manhood and began to be known as an author,
the dignity of Parliament was obscured by endless cabals between Whig and Tory factions, in,which the prominent figures
were intriguing women.'Nothing could be more small and
petty than was political life during the whole reign of Queen
Anne, while Pope was still young. And during the rest of his
life, under the first two Georges and the supremacy of Walpole,
government was corrupt, unheroic, but moderate and tolerant.
Among statesmen brilliant genius, lofty intelligence, and purity
of aim were unknown, but in their stead there was moderation,
cunning intrigue, and the spirit of compromise. These were the
qualities required firmly to establish the Protestant succession
and parliamentary institutions. We may boast as we please of
the glorious Revolution; its immediate sequel was a state of
political morality as low and scandalous as any that England
has ever seen. After the exile of the Stuarts the country, nominally governed by Parliament, was in reality in the hands of a
few great Whig families, who manipulated Parliament as they
pleased. Marlborough and Walpole, with short interludes of
Bolingbroke and Harley, these were the leading statesmen all
through the life of Pope. See how they.and their regime strike
the acute and brilliant Frenohman:
"Treachery'vas everywhere not simple, but double and triple. Under
William and Anne, admirals, ministers, members of the Privy Council,
favorites of the antechamber, corresponded and conspired with the Stuarts
whom they had sold, only to sell them again, with a complication of bargains each destroying the last, and a complication of perjuries each surpassing the last, until in the end no one knew who had bought him or to
what party he belonged. Marlborough, the greatest general of the age, is
one of the basest rogues in history;... a niggard;... systematically
plundering h's soldiers. trafficking in political secrets, a traitor to James II.,
to William, to England [betraying to James II. the intended plan of attacking Brest, and even, when old and infirm, walking from the public rooms
in Bath to his lodgings on a cold dark night to save sixpence].
"Next to him Bolingbroke, a sceptic and cynic, minister in turn to
Queen and Pretender, disloyal alike to both, a trafficker in consciences,
marriages, and promises, who had squandered his talents in debauch and
intrigue; to end in disgrace, impotence,. and scorn!"
Walpole, who if he desired, as is said, the welfare of his
country, took a low, material view of what that welfare consisted
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