But when Walpole became Prime Minister in 1721 he changed all this, and set his face like a flint against employing literary men in the public service in any capacity whatsoever. In this he was supported by George the First, and his successor George the Second, who both despised literature and never opened a book. The number of readers was far more limited then than now (though perhaps they were more discriminating), and writing books was consequently less lucrative. When men of talent and genius saw the avenues of patronage and of usefulness in the State suddenly closed to them by the Prime Minister, it is no wonder that they placed their pens at the service of the Opposition, led as it was by two men so appreciative of the claims of literature as Bolingbroke and Pulteney. But Walpole did not heed, and for twenty years followed the same policy. “No writer need apply” was written over every door that led to preferment in the State. But in the long run the writers had their revenge, and his neglect of the pamphleteers was one of the chief causes that led to Walpole’s fall. Queen Caroline had promised so fair when Princess of Wales, and her influence over her husband was known to be so great, that many literary men looked forward to her coming to the throne as likely to bring about a revival of the Augustan age of Queen Anne. They were bitterly disappointed when they found her in close accord with the Minister who had slammed the door of patronage in their faces, and many considered that she had betrayed them. They forgot that in an alliance like that between the Queen and Walpole each had to yield something, and the Queen yielded some of her interest in letters for the larger interests she had at stake. It was a pity that with so real a desire to help literature Caroline was able to do so little. It was a still greater pity that after she became Queen her relations with some of the greatest English men of letters, like Swift, Gay and Pope, were strained to breaking point. The fault was not all on her side, and in some cases the breach was inevitable, but it was none the less unfortunate. [Illustration: MRS. CLAYTON (VISCOUNTESS SUNDON).]