17th.--The Committee on the Regency Bill was resumed. Lord Strange asked, if being nominated to the Council of Regency would vacate a seat in Parliament. T. Pitt proposed to leave out such words as precluded the Princess from disposing of offices. Old Horace Walpole ridiculed the Speaker, and was glad that with all his pomp and protestations he had no more influence. He was proceeding to preach up more regard to the King’s Message, but was called to order by T. Pitt and Lord Strange, who objected to making such use of the King’s name in a Debate. Prowse said, “he would appeal to that great treaty-maker, whether it was proper that fourteen persons should be entrusted with all the steps of a negotiation? That for the nomination of Bishops and Judges, he thought it a trifle; but disapproved extremely of the Council having any power to dispose of the Treasury, which with so great an army of revenue-men might be dangerous, if in the opposite scale to the Crown.” Horace Walpole replied, “That some had carried it so much beyond him, as to be willing to trust the secret of treaties to seven hundred persons.” Horace Walpole[123] was still one of the busiest men in Parliament; generally bustling for the Ministry to get a Peerage, and even zealous for them when he could not get so much as their thanks. With the King he had long been in disgrace, on disputing a point of German genealogy with him (in which his Majesty’s chief strength lay) whose the succession of some Principality would be, if eleven or twelve persons then living should die without issue. He knew something of everything but how to hold his tongue, or how to apply his knowledge. As interest was in all his actions, treaties were in all his speeches. Whatever the subject was, he never lost sight of the peace of Utrecht, Lord Bolingbroke, and the Norwich manufactures; but his language and oratory were only adapted to manufacturers. He was a dead weight on his brother’s Ministry; the first to take off that load on his brother’s fall;[124] yet nobody so intemperately abusive on all who connected with his brother’s enemies; nobody so ready to connect with them for the least flattery,[125] which he loved next to money--indeed he never entirely forgave Lord Bath for being richer. His mind was a strange mixture of sense alloyed by absurdity, wit by mimicry, knowledge by buffoonery, bravery by meanness, honesty by selfishness, impertinence by nothing. * * * *