carry on the work begun by Cromwell and by Marlborough. Marvellous to relate there were still alive in 1731 two old men, the one a Royalist officer aged one hundred and eighteen, the other a Puritan soldier aged one hundred and eleven, who had fought at the battle of Edgehill and yet shared some few years of the world with Wolfe and Clive. They had seen Oliver Cromwell as a simple captain, and they lived to see William Pitt gazetted a cornet of horse.[127] CHAPTER III [Sidenote: 1738.] The long reign of Walpole and of peace had endured for full seventeen years. Session after session, through difficulty after difficulty, the minister had handled his charge with consummate dexterity, as a horse-breaker handles an unbroken colt; lunging or riding the nation round and round sometimes in a larger, sometimes in a smaller circle, but except in a circle never permitting it to move at all. It was a change, and doubtless a wholesome change, from the erratic course which England had pursued for the past century, but after a time it became wearisome. Conscious of health, vigour, and strength, the nation began to pant for a wider field and for a rider that would guide it on some more adventurous career. But though there was abundance of aspirants to the saddle it was no easy matter for them to unseat Walpole; their only chance was to rouse the dumb creature, which he had so cleverly mastered, to throw him. The terrors of a standing Army, notwithstanding persistent brandishing of the old flag and howling of the old cries, had ceased to terrify, and it was necessary to discover some excitement of a more formidable kind.