'Had not his elder brother happened to die, he had been in very low circumstances after having been in several reigns for more than twenty years, though he was a man that never made any great expenses, for he won at play, and mortally hated all kinds of show and grandeur, but he was very charitable and generous; and though he had lived so long, and had great employments, when he died he had not in the world but about £14,000 in tallies, of which sum seven was mine, three Mrs. Rundal's, a thousand Mrs. Curtis's (a woman that looked after my two elder children), and many other small sums that he took of helpless people who thought themselves safe in his hands; and when all his debts were paid there could hardly be enough to bury him.' It may not be out of place to note here, that Mrs. A. T. Thomson has vindicated, in a most spirited and successful manner, the charge, brought by some of the scandalmongers of the day, of a liaison between the Duchess and Godolphin. And yet, notwithstanding his own poverty, so far as regarded the public weal hardly ever was there a statesman of more reliable, cool judgment, or a more skilled political economist; nor did anyone possess in a higher degree, says Mr. Wyon, the then rare virtue of incorruptible integrity. Although Godolphin had been the trusted Minister of Sovereigns of so various temperaments--holding his own with them all--yet that he was no sycophant or hypocrite is clear from his having run counter to the wishes of both Charles II. and James II., by voting for the Exclusion Bill, and by favouring the suggestion of a Regency even when the accession of William III. seemed inevitable. Men seemed to have felt that in Godolphin's hands they were safe. We have seen the effect which his fall produced amongst the financiers of London; and in the concluding sentence of one of Evelyn's letters (addressed though it was to Godolphin himself) we find, what is no doubt a true echo of the regard in which he was generally held: * * * * * 'In such a tempest and overgrown a sea, everybody is concerned, and whose head is not ready to turne? I am sure, I should myselfe almost despaire of the vessel, if any, save your Lordship, were at the helme. But, whilst your hand is on the staff, and your eye upon the star, I compose myselfe and rest secure. 'Surrey Street, 16th June, 1696.' Well might Swift write in one of his letters to Stella, dated 18th Sept., 1712: 'The Whigs have lost a great support in the Earl of Godolphin. It is a good jest to hear the Ministers talk of him with humanity and pity, because he is dead, _and can do them no more hurt_.' Lady Henrietta Godolphin never forgave Swift for his way of writing about her father-in-law. She, as we have seen, cut him at a card-party at Lady Clarges', just as sturdy, honest Dr. Johnson cut him in the street.