French Revolution. Swift does not make one see, as
Burke does, that the whole soul and conscience of the author are in his
work. Swift is evidently the advocate retained to conduct the case;
Burke is the man of impassioned conviction, speaking out because he
cannot keep silent. Still, we have all of us been sometimes made to
question our own judgment, and almost to repudiate our own previously
formed impressions as to facts, by the skill of some great advocate in
a court of law; and it is skill of this kind, and of the very highest
order, that we have to recognize in Swift's efforts to justify the
policy of the Treaty of Utrecht. To make out any case it was necessary
to endeavor to lower Marlborough in the estimation of the English
people, just as it was necessary to destroy his power in order to get
the ground open for the {97} arrangement of the treaty. Swift set
himself to this task with a malignity equal to his genius. Arbuthnot,
hardly inferior as a satirist to Swift, wrote a "History of John Bull,"
to hold up Marlborough and Marlborough's wife to ridicule and to
hatred. He depicted the great soldier as a low and roguish attorney,
who was deluding his clients into the carrying on of a long and costly
lawsuit for the mere sake of putting money into his own pocket. He
lampooned England's allies as well as England's great general; he
described the Dutch, whom the Tory ministers had shamefully betrayed,
as self-seeking and perfidious traitors, for whose protection we were
sacrificing all, until we found out that they were secretly juggling
with our enemies for our destruction. No stronger argument could be
found to condemn the conduct of the Tory ministers than the mere fact
that Swift and Arbuthnot failed to secure their acquittal at the bar of
public opinion. All the attacks on Marlborough were inspired by
Bolingbroke, and it has only to be added that Marlborough had been
Bolingbroke's first and best benefactor.

The King appointed Lord Townshend his Secretary of State. The office
was then regarded as that of First Lord of the Treasury is now; it
carried with it the authority of Prime-minister. James Stanhope was
Second Secretary. Walpole was at first put in the subordinate office
of Paymaster-general, without a seat in the Cabinet; a place in
Administration which at a later period was assigned to no less a man
than Edmund Burke. Walpole's political capacity soon, however, made it
evident that he was fi