Still more unfavourably shines another of the generals of this reign. Lord Cobham did not lack bravery, but he owed most of his celebrity to Pope. He did not care how wicked a man was, provided only he were a gentleman in his vices; and he was guilty of an act which Marlborough would have contemplated with horror--namely, tried hard to make infidels of two promising young gentlemen--Gilbert West, and George, subsequently Lord, Lyttelton. Marlborough, too, was superior in morality to Blakeney, that brave soldier and admirable dancer of Irish jigs; but who was so addicted to amiable excesses, of which court and courtiers thought little at this liberal period, that he drank punch till he was paralysed. And surely it was better, like Marlborough, to play for sixpences, than, like Wade, to build up and throw down fortunes, night after night, at the gaming-table. But there was a more celebrated general at the court of the second George than the road-constructing Wade. John Dalrymple, Earl of Stair, was one of those men in high station whose acts tend to the weal or woe of inferior men who imitate them. Stair was for ever gaily allowing his expenditure to exceed his income. His sense of honour was not so keen but that he would go in disguise among the Jacobites, profess to be of them, and betray their confidence. And yet even Lord Stair could act with honest independence. He voted against Walpole’s Excise scheme, in 1733, although he knew that such a vote would cost him all his honours. He _was_ accordingly turned out from his post of lord high admiral for Scotland. Caroline was angry at his vote, yet sorry for its consequences. ‘Why,’ said she to him, ‘why were you so silly as to thwart Walpole’s views?’ ‘Because, madam,’ was the reply, ‘I wished you and your family better than to support such a project.’ Stair merits, too, a word of commendation for his protesting against the merciless conduct of the government with respect to the captive Jacobites; and, like Marlborough, he was of praiseworthy conduct in private life, zealous for Presbyterianism, yet tolerant of all other denominations, and, by his intense attachment to a Protestant succession, one of the most valuable supporters of the throne of George and Caroline. Both the men were consistent; but equal praise cannot be awarded to another good soldier of the period. The Duke of Argyle, when out of office, declared that a standing army, in time of peace, was ever fatal either to prince or nation; subsequently, when in office, he as deliberately maintained that a standing army never had in any country the chief hand in destroying the liberties of the state. This sort of disgraceful versatility marked his entire political career; and it is further said of him that he ‘was meanly ambitious of emolument as a politician, and contemptibly mercenary as a patron.’ He had, however, one rare and by no means unimportant virtue. ‘The strictest economy was