en of the time.
We quote one of Lady Suffolk's letters addressed to Swift, apparently in
answer to some of his perpetual complaints of a world, which used him
only too well after all.

"_September_, 1727.

"I write to you to please myself. I hear you are melancholy,
because you have a bad head and deaf ears. These are two
misfortunes I have laboured under these many years, and yet never
was peevish with either myself or the world. Have I more philosophy
and resolution than you? Or am I so stupid that I do not feel the
evil?

"Answer those queries in writing, if _poison_ or other methods do
not enable you soon to appear in person. Though I make use of your
own word, poison, yet let me tell you--it is nonsense, and I desire
you will take more care for the time to come. Now, you endeavour to
impose on my understanding by taking no care of your own."

The value of a keen and active confidante in a court of perpetual
intrigue was obvious, and Mrs Clayton was the double of the Queen. But a
deeper and more painful reason is assigned for her confidence. The Queen
had a malady, which is not described in her Memoirs, but which we
suppose to have been a cancer, which she was most anxious to hide from
all the world. Walpole discovered it, and the discovery exhibits his
skill in human nature.

On the death of Lady Walpole, the Queen, who was about the same age,
asked Sir Robert in many questions as to her illness; but he remarked,
that she frequently reverted to one particular malady, which had _not_
been Lady Walpole's disease. "When he came home," (his son writes) "he
said to me,--now, Horace, I know by the possession of what secret Lady
Sundon has preserved such an ascendant over the Queen."

Mrs Clayton possessed at least one merit (if merit it be) in a
remarkable degree, that of providing for her relatives. She was of a
poor family, and she contrived to get something for them all. Her three
nieces had court places, one of them that of a maid of honour; one
brother obtained a cornetcy in the Horse Guards; another a chief
clerkship in the annuity office; and her nephew was sent out with Lord
Albemarle to Spain. A more remarkable relative was Clayton, Bishop of
Clogher, who evidently knew the value of her patronage, for a more
importunate suitor, and a more persevering sycophant, never kissed
hands. Finally, she obtained a peerage