the world; but a little sooner or a little later the mystery will be revealed, and nothing will be found to be couched under it but a thread of pitiful expedients, the ultimate end of which never extended farther than living from day to day. Which of these pictures resembles Oxford most you will determine. I am sorry to be obliged to name him so often, but how is it possible to do otherwise while I am speaking of times wherein the whole turn of affairs depended on his motions and character? I have heard, and I believe truly, that when he returned to Windsor in the autumn of 1713, after the marriage of his son, he pressed extremely to have him created Duke of Newcastle or Earl of Clare, and the Queen presuming to hesitate on so extraordinary a proposal, he resented this hesitation in a manner which little became a man who had been so lately raised by the profusion of her favours upon him. Certain it is, that he began then to show a still greater remissness in all parts of his Ministry, and to affect to say that from such a time, the very time I am speaking of, he took no share in the direction of affairs, or words to that effect. He pretended to have discovered intrigues which were set on foot against him, and particularly he complained of the advantage which was taken of his absence during the journey he made at his son’s marriage to undermine him with the Queen. He is naturally inclined to believe the worst, which I take to be a certain mark of a mean spirit and a wicked soul. At least, I am sure that the contrary quality, when it is not due to weakness of understanding, is the fruit of a generous temper and an honest heart. Prone to judge ill of all mankind, he will rarely be seduced by his credulity, but I never knew a man so capable of being the bubble of his distrust and jealousy. He was so in this case, although the Queen, who could not be ignorant of the truth, said enough to undeceive him. But to be undeceived, and to own himself so, was not his play. He hoped by cunning to varnish over his want of faith and of ability. He was desirous to make the world impute the extraordinary part, or, to speak more properly, the no part, which he acted with the staff of Treasurer in his hand, to the Queen’s withdrawing her favour from him and to his friends abandoning him—pretences utterly groundless when he first made them, and which he brought to be real at last. Even the winter before the Queen’s death, when his credit began to wane apace, he might have regained it; he might have reconciled himself perfectly with all his ancient friends, and have acquired the confidence of the whole party. I say he might have done all this, because I am persuaded that none of those I have named were so convinced of his perfidy, so jaded with his yoke, or so much piqued personally against him as I was; and yet if he would have exerted himself in concert with us to improve the few advantages which were left us and to ward off the visible danger