Walpole's description of the ministry adds strikingly to the contemptuous feeling, naturally generated by their singular ill success. We must also observe, as much to the discredit of the past age as to the honour of the present; that the leading men of the day exhibited or affected a depravity of morals, which would be the ruin of any public character at the present time. Many of the scenes in high life would have been fitter for the court of Charles II., and many of the actors in those scenes ought to have been cashiered from public employment. Personal profligacy seems actually to have been regarded as a species of ornamental appendage to public character; and, except where its exposure sharpened the sting of an epigram, or gave an additional flourish to the periods of a political writer, no one seems to have conceived that the grossest offences against morality were of the nature of crime. Another scandal seems to have been frequent--intemperance in wine. Hard drinking was common in England at that period, and was even regarded as the sign of a generous spirit; but nearly all the leading politicians who died early, are described as owing their deaths to excess. Those are fortunate distinctions for the days which have followed; and the country may justly congratulate itself on the abandonment of habits, which, deeply tending to corrupt private character, render political baseness the almost inevitable result among public men. Walpole promptly declares, that half the success of Wilkes was owing to the supineness of the ministers. He might have gone further, and fixed his charge on higher grounds. He ought to have said, that the whole was owing to the mingled treachery and profligacy which made the nation loathe the characters of public parties and public men. Walpole says, in support of his assertion--"that Lord Chatham would take no part in business; that the Duke of Grafton neglected every thing, and whenever pressed to be active threatened to resign; that the Chancellor Camden, placed between two such intractable friends, with whom he was equally discontented, avoided dipping himself further; that Conway, no longer in the Duke's confidence, and more hurt with neglect than pleased with power, stood in the same predicament; that Lord Gower thought of nothing but ingratiating himself at St James's; and though what little business was done was executed by Lord Weymouth, it required all Wood's, the secretary's, animosity to Wilkes, to stir him up to any activity. Wood even said, "that if the King should pardon Wilkes, Lord Weymouth would not sign the pardon." The chief magistrate of the city, consulting the chancellor on what he should do if Wilkes should stand for the city, and being answered that he "must consult the recorder," Harley sharply replied, "I consulted your lordship as a minister, I don't want to be told my duty."