titution; and so of the rest. Or, to quit this allegory,
I have often seen of late, the whole set of discarded statesmen,
celebrated by their judicious hirelings, for those very qualities which
their admirers owned they chiefly wanted. Did these heroes put off and
lock up their virtues when they came into employment, and have they now
resumed them since their dismissions? If they wore them, I am sure it was
_under_ their greatness, and without ever once convincing the world of
their visibility or influence.

But why should not the present ministry find a pen to praise them as well
as the last? This is what I shall now undertake, and it may be more
impartial in me, from whom they have deserved so little. I have, _without
being called_, served them half a year in quality of champion,[11] and by
help of the Qu[een] and a majority of nine in ten of the kingdom, have
been able to protect them against a routed cabal of hated politicians,
with a dozen of scribblers at their head; yet so far have they been from
rewarding me suitable to my deserts, that to this day they never so much
as sent to the printer to enquire who I was; though I have known a time
and a ministry, where a person of half my merit and consideration would
have had fifty promises, and in the mean time a pension settled on him,
whereof the _first quarter_ should be honestly paid. Therefore my
resentments shall so far prevail, that in praising those who are now at
the head of affairs, I shall at the same time take notice of their
defects.

Was any man more eminent in his profession than the present l[or]d
k[eepe]r,[12] or more distinguished by his eloquence and great abilities
in the House of Commons? And will not his enemies allow him to be fully
equal to the great station he now adorns? But then it must be granted,
that he is wholly ignorant in the speculative as well as practical part
of polygamy: he knows not how to metamorphose a sober man into a
lunatic:[13] he is no freethinker in religion, nor has courage to be
patron of an atheistical book,[14] while he is guardian of the Qu[een]'s
conscience. Though after all, to speak my private opinion, I cannot think
these such mighty objections to his character, as some would pretend.

The person who now presides at the council,[15] is descended from a great
and honourable father, not from the dregs of the people; he was at the
head of the treasury for some years, and rather chose to enrich his
prince than himsel