If a man like William of Nassau could stoop to deceit and falsehood for any political purpose, it is easy to understand that a man like Harley would make free use of the same arts, and for personal objects as well. Harley's political changes were so many and so rapid that they could not possibly be explained by any theory consistent with sincerity. It was well said of him that "his humor is never to deal clearly or openly, but always with reserve, if not dissimulation, and to love tricks when not necessary, but from an inward satisfaction in applauding his own cunning." He entered Parliament in 1689, and in 1700 was chosen Speaker of the House of Commons. At that time, and for long after, it was not an uncommon thing that a man who had been Speaker should afterwards become a Secretary of State, sitting in the same House. This was Harley's case: in 1704 he was made principal Secretary of State. In 1708 Harley resigned office, and immediately after took the leadership of the Tory party. In about two years he overthrew the Whig administration, and became the head of a new government, with the place of Lord High Treasurer, and the title of Earl of Oxford. {31} His craft seems only to have been that low kind of artifice which enables an unscrupulous man to cajole his followers and to stir up division among his enemies. His word was not to be relied upon by friend or enemy, and when he most affected a tone of frankness or of candor he was least to be trusted. As Lord Stanhope well says of him "His slender and pliant intellect was well fitted to crawl up to the heights of power through all the crooked mazes and dirty by-paths of intrigue; but having once attained the pinnacle, its smallness and meanness were exposed to all the world." Even his private life had not the virtues which one who reads some of the exalted panegyrics paid to him by contemporary poets and others would be apt to imagine. He was fond of drink and fond of pleasure in a small and secret way; his vices were as unlike the daring and brilliant profligacy of his colleague and rival Bolingbroke as his intellect was inferior to Bolingbroke's surpassing genius. For all Pope's poetic eulogy, the poet could say in prose of Lord Oxford that he was not a very capable minister, and had a good deal of negligence into the bargain. "He used to send trifling verses from court to the Scriblerus Club every day, and would come and talk idly with them almost every night, even when his all was at stake." Pope adds that Oxford "talked of business in so confused a manner that you did not know what he was about, and everything he went to tell you was in the epic way, for he always began in the middle." Swift calls him "the greatest procrastinator in the world." It is of Lord Oxford that the story is originally told which has been told of so many statesmen here and in America since his time. Lord Oxford, according to Pope, invited Rowe, the dramatic poet, to learn Spanish.