Walpole was now paramount; he had purchased his supremacy by his official prodigality. Lord Hervey thinks that he was still hurt by two mortifications—the displacement of his son-in-law, Lord Malpas, and of Sir William Yonge, a Lord of the Treasury, and his notorious tool. But, contrasting those trifling changes with the plenitude of Walpole’s power, and recollecting the extraordinary wiliness of his nature, it seems not improbable that he either counselled or countenanced those dismissals, to escape the invidiousness of absolute power; for both Malpas and Yonge clung to the court, and, after a decent interval, were replaced in office. Walpole was, perhaps, one of the most singular instances of personal dexterity in the annals of statesmanship. Without eloquence in the House, or character out of it; without manners in the court, or virtue any where, he continued to hold supreme ministerial power for nearly a quarter of a century, under the most jealous of kings, with the weakest of cabinets, against the most powerful Opposition, and in the midst of the most contemptuous people. His power seems even to have grown out of those sinister elements. By constantly balancing them against each other, by at once awaking fears and exciting hopes, he deluded all the fools, and enlisted all the knaves of public life in his cause. The permanency of his office, however, wholly rested upon the Queen; and he had the dexterity to discover, from the moment of the Royal accession, that, insulted as she was by the King’s conduct, she was the true source of ministerial power. He accordingly adhered to her, in all the fluctuations of the court, appeared to consult her on all occasions, studied her opinions, and provided for her expenses. The want of money, or its possession, seem to have exerted an extraordinary influence on the higher ranks in those days; and one of the first acts of Walpole was to offer the Queen £60,000 a-year. Sir Spencer Compton had been impolitic enough to propose but £40,000, on the ground that this sum had been sufficient for Charles II.’s queen. The sum was at last settled at £50,000, and the donor was not forgotten. But it seems impossible to doubt, that Walpole’s character was essentially corrupt; that he regarded corruption as a legitimate source of power; that he bribed every man whom he had the opportunity to bribe: that he laughed at political integrity, and did his best to extinguish the little that existed; that no minister ever went further to degrade the character of public life; and that the period of his supremacy is a general blot upon the reign, the time, and the people.