The death of George I. had brought Walpole forward as the minister of his son. The story of Sir Spencer Compton has been often told, but never so well as in these Memoirs. The King died on the 11th of June 1727 at Osnaburg. The news reached Walpole on the 14th, at his villa in Chelsea. He immediately went to Richmond to acquaint the Prince of Wales with this momentous intelligence. The Prince was asleep after dinner, according to his custom; but he was awakened for the intelligence, which he appeared to receive with surprise. Yet, neither the sense of his being raised to a throne, nor the natural feelings of such an occasion, prevented the exhibition of his dislike to Walpole. On being asked, when it was his pleasure that the Council should be summoned, the King’s abrupt answer was, “Go to Chiswick, and take your directions from Sir Spencer Compton.” Sir Robert bore this ill-usage with his habitual philosophy, and went to Compton at once. There he acted with his usual address; told him that he was minister, and requested his protection; declaring that he had no desire for power or business, but wished to have one of the “white sticks,” as a mark that he was still under the shelter of the crown. Lord Hervey delights in portraiture, and his portraits generally have a bitter reality, which at once proves the truth of the likeness and the severity of the artist. He daguerreotypes all his generation. He thus describes Sir Spencer: “He was a plodding, heavy fellow, with great application but no talents; with vast complaisance for a court; always more concerned for the manner of the thing than for the thing itself; fitter for a clerk to a minister than for a minister to a prince. His only pleasures were money and eating; his only knowledge forms and precedents; and his only insinuation bows and smiles.” Walpole and he went together to the Duke of Devonshire, President of the Council, but laid up with the gout. Lord Hervey’s sketch of him is certainly not flattering—but such is the price paid by personal feebleness for public station—“He was more able as a virtuoso than a statesman, and a much better jockey than a politician.”