report everything just as it is, or at least just as
it appears to me; and those who have a curiosity to see courts and
courtiers dissected, must bear with the dirt they find in laying open
such minds with as little nicety and as much patience as, in a
dissection of their bodies, if they wanted to see that operation, they
must submit to the disgust."

Hervey fought with spirit and effect on the side of Walpole, although
Lady Hervey strongly disliked the Minister and was disliked by him.
Walpole had at one time, it was said, made unsuccessful love to the
beautiful and witty Molly Lepell, and he did not forgive her because of
her scornful rejection of his ponderous attempts at gallantry. Hervey,
nevertheless, took Walpole's side, and proved to be an ally of some
importance. A great struggle was approaching, in which the whole
strength of Walpole's hold on the Sovereign and the country was to be
tested by the severest strain.

{309}

[Sidenote: 1730--The Sinking Fund]

Walpole was, as we have said more than once, the first of the great
financier statesmen of England. He was the first statesman who
properly appreciated the virtue and the value of mere economy in the
disposal of a nation's revenues. He was the first to devise anything
like a solid and symmetrical plan for the fair adjustment of taxation.
Sometimes he had recourse to rather poor and common-place artifices, as
in the case of his proposal to meet a certain financial strain by
borrowing half a million from the Sinking Fund. This proposal he
carried by a large majority, in spite of the most vehement and even
furious opposition on the part of the Patriots. It must be owned that
the Patriots were right enough in the principle of their objection to
this encroachment on the Sinking Fund, although their predictions as to
the ruin it must bring upon the country were preposterous. Borrowing
from a sinking fund is always rather a shabby dodge; but it is a trick
familiar to all statesmen in difficulties, and Walpole did no worse
than many statesmen of later days, who, with the full advantages of a
sound and well-developed financial system, have shown that they were
not able to do any better.

The Patriots seem to have made up their minds to earn their title.
They fought the "Court," or Ministerial, party on a variety of issues.
They supported motions for the reduction of the numbers of the army,
and they declaimed against the whole principle of a standing arm