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Halifax had, in common with Shaftesbury, and with almost all the politicians of
that age, a very loose morality where the public was concerned; but in Halifax
the prevailing infection was modified by a very peculiar constitution both of
heart and head, by a temper singularly free from gall, and by a refining and
skeptical understanding. He changed his course as often as Shaftesbury; but he
did not change it to the same extent, or in the same direction. Shaftesbury was
the very reverse of a trimmer. His disposition led him generally to do his
utmost to exalt the side which was up, and to depress the side which was down.
His transitions were from extreme to extreme. While he stayed with a party he
went all lengths for it: when he quitted it he went all lengths against it.
Halifax was emphatically a trimmer; a trimmer both by intellect and by
constitution. The name was fixed on him by his contemporaries; and he was so far
from being ashamed of it that he assumed it as a badge of honor. He passed from
faction to faction. But instead of adopting and inflaming the passions of those
whom he joined, he tried to diffuse among them something of the spirit of those
whom he had just left. While he acted with the Opposition he was suspected of
being a spy of the Court; and when he had joined the Court all the Tories were
dismayed by his Republican doctrines.
He wanted neither arguments nor eloquence to exhibit what was commonly regarded
as his wavering policy in the fairest light. He trimmed, he said, as the
temperate zone trims between intolerable heat and intolerable cold, as a good
government trims between despotism and anarchy, as a pure church trims between
the errors of the Papist and those of the Anabaptist. Nor was this defense by
any means without weight; for though there is abundant proof that his integrity
was not of strength to withstand the temptations by which his cupidity and
vanity were sometimes assailed, yet his dislike of extremes, and a forgiving and
compassionate temper which seems to have been natural to him, preserved him from
all participation in the worst crimes of his time. If both parties accused him
of deserting them, both were compelled to admit that they had great obligations
to his humanity, and that, though an uncertain friend, he was a placable enemy.
He voted in favor of Lord Stafford, the victim of the Whigs; he did his utmost
to save Lord Russell, the victim of the Tories; and, on the whole, we are
inclined to think that his public life, though far indeed from faultless, has as
few great stains as that of any politician who took an active part in affairs
during the troubled and disastrous period of ten years which elapsed between the
fall of Lord Danby and the Revolution.
His mind was much less turned to particular observations, and much more to
general speculations, than that of Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury knew the King, the
Council, the Parliament, the City, better than Halifax; but Halifax would have
written a far better treatise on political science than Shaftesbury. Shaftesbury
shone more in consultation, and Halifax in controversy: Shaftesbury was more
fertile in expedients, and Halifax in arguments. Nothing that remains from the
pen of Shaftesbury will bear a comparison with the political tracts of Halifax.
Indeed, very little of the prose of that age is so well worth reading as the
Character of a Trimmer and the Anatomy of an Equivalent. What particularly
strikes us in those works is the writer's passion for generalization. He was
treating of the most exciting subjects in the most agitated times he was himself
placed in the very thick of the civil conflict; yet there is no acrimony,
nothing inflammatory, nothing personal. He preserves an air of cold superiority,
a certain philosophical serenity, which is perfectly marvelous. He treats every
question as an abstract question, begins with the widest propositions, argues
those propositions on general grounds, and often, when he has brought out his
theorem, leaves the reader to make the application, without adding an allusion
to particular men, or to passing events. This speculative turn of mind rendered
him a bad adviser in cases which required celerity. He brought forward, with
wonderful readiness and copiousness, arguments, replies to those arguments,
rejoinders to those replies, general maxims of policy, and analogous cases from
history. But Shaftesbury was the man for a prompt decision. Of the parliamentary
eloquence of these celebrated rivals, we can judge only by report; and, so
judging, we should be inclined to think that, though Shaftesbury was a
distinguished speaker, the superiority belonged to Halifax. Indeed the readiness
of Halifax in debate, the extent of his knowledge, the ingenuity of his
reasoning, the liveliness of his expression, and the silver clearness and
sweetness of his voice, seems to have made the strongest impression on his
contemporaries. By Dryden he is described as
"of piercing wit and pregnant thought, Endued by nature and by learning taught
To move assemblies."
His oratory is utterly and irretrievably lost to us, like that of Somers, of
Bolingbroke, of Charles Townshend, of many others who were accustomed to rise
amid the breathless expectation of senates, and to sit down amidst reiterated
bursts of applause. But old men who lived to admire the eloquence of Pulteney in
its meridian, and that of Pitt in its splendid dawn, still murmured that they
had heard nothing like the great speeches of Lord Halifax on the Exclusion Bill.
The power of Shaftesbury over large masses was unrivalled. Halifax was
disqualified by his whole character, moral and intellectual, for the part of a
demagogue. It was in small circles, and, above all, in the House of Lords, that
his ascendancy was felt.
Shaftesbury seems to have troubled himself very little about theories of
government. Halifax was, in speculation, a strong republican, and did not
conceal it. He often made hereditary monarchy and aristocracy the subjects of
his keen pleasantry, while he was fighting the battles of the Court, and
obtaining for himself step after step in the peerage. In this way, he tried to
gratify at once his intellectual vanity and his more vulgar ambition. He shaped
his life according to the opinion of the multitude, and indemnified himself by
talking according to his own. His colloquial powers were great; his perception
of the ridiculous exquisitely fine; and he seems to have had the rare art of
preserving the reputation of good breeding and good nature, while habitually
indulging a strong propensity to mockery.
Temple wished to put Halifax into the new Council, and leave out Shaftesbury.
The King objected strongly to Halifax, to whom he had taken a great dislike,
which is not accounted for, and which did not last long. Temple replied that
Halifax was a man eminent both by his station and by his abilities, and would,
if excluded, do everything against the new arrangement that could be done by
eloquence, sarcasm, and intrigue. All who were consulted were of the same mind;
and the King yielded, but not till Temple had almost gone on his knees. This
point was no sooner settled than his Majesty declared that he would have
Shaftesbury too. Temple again had recourse to entreaties and expostulations.
Charles told him that the enmity of Shaftesbury would be at least as formidable
as that of Halifax, and this was true; but Temple might have replied that by
giving power to Halifax they gained a friend, and that by giving power to
Shaftesbury they only strengthened an enemy. It was vain to argue and protest.
The King only laughed and jested at Temple's anger; and Shaftesbury was not only
sworn of the Council, but appointed Lord President.
Temple was so bitterly mortified by this step that he had at one time resolved
to have nothing to do with the new Administration, and seriously thought of
disqualifying himself from sitting in council by omitting to take the Sacrament.
But the urgency of Lady Temple and Lady Giffard induced him to abandon that
intention.
The Council was organized on the twenty-first of April, 1679; and, within a few
hours, one of the fundamental principles on which it had been constructed was
violated. A secret committee, or, in the modern phrase, a cabinet of nine
members, was formed. But as this committee included Shaftesbury and Monmouth, it
contained within itself the elements of as much faction as would have sufficed
to impede all business. Accordingly there soon arose a small interior cabinet,
consisting of Essex, Sunderland, Halifax, and Temple. For a time perfect harmony
and confidence subsisted between the four. But the meetings of the thirty were
stormy. Sharp retorts passed between Shaftesbury and Halifax, who led the
opposite parties, In the Council, Halifax generally had the advantage. But it
soon became apparent that Shaftesbury still had at his back the majority of the
House of Commons. The discontents which the change of Ministry had for a moment
quieted broke forth again with redoubled violence; and the only effect which the
late measures appeared to have produced was that the Lord President, with all
the dignity and authority belonging to his high place, stood at the head of the
Opposition. The impeachment of Lord Danby was eagerly prosecuted. The Commons
were determined to exclude the Duke of York from the throne. All offers of
compromise were rejected. It must not be forgotten, however, that, in the midst
of the confusion, one inestimable law, the only benefit which England has
derived from the troubles of that period, but a benefit which may well be set
off against a great mass of evil, the Habeas Corpus Act, was pushed through the
Houses and received the royal assent.
The King, finding the Parliament as troublesome as ever, determined to prorogue
it; and he did so, without even mentioning his intention to the Council by whose
advice he had pledged himself, only a month before, to conduct the Government.
The counselors were generally dissatisfied; and Shaftesbury swore, with great
vehemence, that if he could find out who the secret advisers were, he would have
their heads.
The Parliament rose; London was deserted; and Temple retired to his villa,
whence, on council days, he went to Hampton Court. The post of Secretary was
again and again pressed on him by his master and by his three colleagues of the
inner Cabinet. Halifax, in particular, threatened laughingly to burn down the
house at Sheen. But Temple was immovable. His short experience of English
politics had disgusted him; and he felt himself so much oppressed by the
responsibility under which he at present lay that he had no inclination to add
to the load.
When the term fixed for the prorogation had nearly expired, it became necessary
to consider what course should be taken. The King and his four confidential
advisers thought that a new Parliament might possibly be more manageable, and
could not possibly be more refractory, than that which they now had, and they
therefore determined on a dissolution. But when the question was proposed at
council, the majority, jealous, it should seem, of the small directing knot, and
unwilling to bear the unpopularity of the measures of Government, while excluded
from all power, joined Shaftesbury, and the members of the Cabinet were left
alone in the minority. The King, however, had made up his mind, and ordered the
Parliament to be instantly dissolved. Temple's Council was now nothing more than
an ordinary Privy Council, if indeed it were not something less; and, though
Temple threw the blame of this on the King, on Lord Shaftesbury, on everybody
but himself, it is evident that the failure of his plan is to be chiefly
ascribed to its own inherent defects. His Council was too large to transact
business which required expedition, secrecy, and cordial cooperation. A Cabinet
was therefore formed within the Council. The Cabinet and the majority of the
Council differed; and, as was to be expected, the Cabinet carried their point.
Four votes outweighed six-and-twenty. This being the case, the meetings of the
thirty were not only useless, but positively noxious.
At the ensuing election, Temple was chosen for the University of Cambridge. The
only objection that was made to him by the members of that learned body was
that, in his little work on Holland, he had expressed great approbation of the
tolerant policy of the States; and this blemish, however serious, was
overlooked, in consideration of his high reputation, and of the strong
recommendations with which he was furnished by the Court.
During the summer he remained at Sheen, and amused himself with rearing melons,
leaving to the three other members of the inner Cabinet the whole direction of
public affairs. Some unexplained cause began about this time, to alienate them
from him. They do not appear to have been made angry by any part of his conduct,
or to have disliked him personally. But they had, we suspect, taken the measure
of his mind, and satisfied themselves that he was not a man for that troubled
time, and that he would be a mere encumbrance to them. Living themselves for
ambition, they despised his love of ease. Accustomed to deep stakes in the game
of political hazard, they despised his piddling play. They looked on his
cautious measures with the sort of scorn with which the gamblers at the
ordinary, in Sir Walter Scott's novel, regarded Nigel's practice of never
touching a card but when he was certain to win. He soon found that he was left
out of their secrets. The King had, about this time, a dangerous attack of
illness. The Duke of York, on receiving the news, returned from Holland. The
sudden appearance of the detested Popish successor excited anxiety throughout
the country. Temple was greatly amazed and disturbed. He hastened up to London
and visited Essex, who professed to be astonished and mortified, but could not
disguise a sneering smile. Temple then saw Halifax, who talked to him much about
the pleasures of the country, the anxieties of office, and the vanity of all
human things, but carefully avoided politics and when the Duke's return was
mentioned, only sighed, shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and lifted up
his eyes and hands. In a short time Temple found that his two friends had been
laughing at him, and that they had themselves sent for the Duke, in order that
his Royal Highness might, if the King should die, be on the spot to frustrate
the designs of Monmouth.
He was soon convinced, by a still stronger proof, that, though he had not
exactly offended his master or his colleagues in the Cabinet, he had ceased to
enjoy their confidence. The result of the general election had been decidedly
unfavorable to the Government; and Shaftesbury impatiently expected the day when
the Houses were to meet. The King, guided by the advice of the inner Cabinet,
determined on a step of the highest importance. He told the Council that he had
resolved to prorogue the new Parliament for a year, and requested them not to
object; for he had, he said, considered the subject fully, and had made up his
mind. All who were not in the secret were thunderstruck, Temple as much as any.
Several members rose, and entreated to be heard against the prorogation. But the
King silenced them, and declared that his resolution was unalterable. Temple,
much hurt at the manner in which both himself and the Council had been treated,
spoke with great spirit. He would not, he said, disobey the King by objecting to
a measure an which his Majesty was determined to hear no argument; but he would
most earnestly entreat his Majesty, if the present Council was incompetent to
give advice, to dissolve it and select another; for it was absurd to have
counselors who did not counsel, and who were summoned only to be silent
witnesses of the acts of others. The King listened courteously. But the members
of the Cabinet resented this reproof highly; and from that day Temple was almost
as much estranged from them as from Shaftesbury.
He wished to retire altogether from business. But just at this time Lord
Russell, Lord Cavendish, and some other counselors of the popular party, waited
on the King in a body, declared their strong disapprobation of his measures, and
requested to be excused from attending any more at council. Temple feared that
if, at this moment, he also were to withdraw, he might be supposed to act in
concert with those decided opponents of the Court, and to have determined on
taking a course hostile to the Government. He, therefore, continued to go
occasionally to the board; but he had no longer any real share in the direction
of public affairs.
At length the long term of the prorogation expired. In October 1680, the Houses
met; and the great question of the Exclusion was revived. Few parliamentary
contests in our history appear to have called forth a greater display of talent;
none certainly ever called forth more violent passions. The whole nation was
convulsed by party spirit. The gentlemen of every county, the traders of every
town, the boys of every public school, were divided into exclusionists and
abhorrers. The book-stalls were covered with tracts on the sacredness of
hereditary right, on the omnipotence of Parliament, on the dangers of a disputed
succession, on the dangers of a Popish reign. It was in the midst of this
ferment that Temple took his seat, for the first time, in the House of Commons.
The occasion was a very great one. His talents, his long experience of affairs,
his unspotted public character, the high posts which he had filled, seemed to
mark him out as a man on whom much would depend. He acted like himself, He saw
that, if he supported the Exclusion, he made the King and the heir presumptive
his enemies, and that, if he opposed it, he made himself an object of hatred to
the unscrupulous and turbulent Shaftesbury. He neither supported nor opposed it.
He quietly absented himself from the House. Nay, he took care, he tells us,
never to discuss the question in any society whatever. Lawrence Hyde, afterwards
Earl of Rochester, asked him why he did not attend in his place. Temple replied
that he acted according to Solomon's advice, neither to oppose the mighty, nor
to go about to stop the current of a river. Hyde answered, "You are a wise and a
quiet man." And this might be true. But surely such wise and quiet men have no
call to be members of Parliament in critical times.
A single session was quite enough for Temple. When the Parliament was dissolved,
and another summoned at Oxford, he obtained an audience of the King, and begged
to know whether his Majesty wished him to continue in Parliament. Charles, who
had a singularly quick eye for the weaknesses of all who came near him, had no
doubt seen through Temple, and rated the parliamentary support of so cool and
guarded a friend at its proper value. He answered good-naturedly, but we suspect
a little contemptuously, "I doubt, as things stand, your coming into the House
will not do much good. I think you may as well let it alone." Sir William
accordingly informed his constituents that he should not again apply for their
suffrages, and set off for Sheen, resolving never again to meddle with public
affairs. He soon found that the King was displeased with him. Charles, indeed,
in his usual easy way, protested that he was not angry, not at all. But in a few
days he struck Temple's name out of the list of Privy Councillors.
Why this was done Temple declares himself unable to comprehend. But surely it
hardly required his long and extensive converse with the world to teach him that
there are conjunctures when men think that all who are not with them are against
them, that there are conjunctures when a lukewarm friend, who will not put
himself the least out of his way, who will make no exertion, who will run no
risk, is more distasteful than an enemy. Charles had hoped that the fair
character of Temple would add credit to an unpopular and suspected Government.
But his Majesty soon found that this fair character resembled pieces of
furniture which we have seen in the drawing-rooms of very precise old ladies,
and which are a great deal too white to be used. This exceeding niceness was
altogether out of season. Neither party wanted a man who was afraid of taking a
part, of incurring abuse, of making enemies. There were probably many good and
moderate men who would have hailed the appearance of a respectable mediator. But
Temple was not a mediator. He was merely a neutral.
At last, however, he had escaped from public life, and found himself at liberty
to follow his favorite pursuits. His fortune was easy. He had about fifteen
hundred a year, besides the Mastership of the Rolls in Ireland, an office in
which he had succeeded his father, and which was then a mere sinecure for life,
requiring no residence. His reputation both as a negotiator and a writer stood
high. He resolved to be safe, to enjoy himself, and to let the world take its
course; and he kept his resolution.
Darker times followed. The Oxford Parliament was dissolved. The Tories were
triumphant. A terrible vengeance was inflicted on the chiefs of the Opposition.
Temple learned in his retreat the disastrous fate of several of his old
colleagues in council. Shaftesbury fled to Holland. Russell died on the
scaffold. Essex added a yet sadder and more fearful story to the bloody
chronicles of the Tower. Monmouth clung in agonies of supplication round the
knees of the stern uncle whom he had wronged, and tasted a bitterness worse than
that of death, the bitterness of knowing that he had humbled himself in vain. A
tyrant trampled on the liberties and religion of the realm. The national spirit
swelled high under the oppression. Disaffection spread even to the strongholds
of loyalty, to the Cloisters of Westminster, to the schools of Oxford, to the
guard-room of the household troops, to the very hearth and bed-chamber of the
Sovereign. But the troubles which agitated the whole country did not reach the
quiet orangery in which Temple loitered away several years without once seeing
the smoke of London. He now and then appeared in the circle at Richmond or
Windsor. But the only expressions which he is recorded to have used during these
perilous times were, that he would be a good subject, but that he had done with
politics.
The Revolution came: he remained strictly neutral during the short struggle; and
he then transferred to the new settlement the same languid sort of loyalty which
he had felt for his former masters. He paid court to William at Windsor, and
William dined with him at Sheen. But, in spite of the most pressing
solicitations, Temple refused to become Secretary of State. The refusal
evidently proceeded only from his dislike of trouble and danger; and not, as
some of his admirers would have us believe, from any scruple of conscience or
honor. For he consented that his son should take the office of Secretary at War
under the new Sovereign. This unfortunate young man destroyed himself within a
week after his appointment from vexation at finding that his advice had led the
King into some improper steps with regard to Ireland. He seems to have inherited
his father's extreme sensibility to failure, without that singular prudence
which kept his father out of all situations in which any serious failure was to
be apprehended. The blow fell heavily on the family. They retired in deep
dejection to Moor Park,1 which they now preferred to
Sheen, on account of the greater distance from London. In that spot, then very
secluded, Temple passed the remainder of his life. The air agreed with him. The
soil was fruitful, and well suited to an experimental farmer and gardener. The
grounds were laid out with the angular regularity which Sir William had admired
in the flower-beds of Harlem and the Hague. A beautiful rivulet, flowing from
the hills of Surrey, bounded the domain. But a straight canal which, bordered by
a terrace, intersected the garden, was probably more admired by the lovers of
the picturesque in that age. The house was small but neat, and well-furnished;
the neighborhood very thinly peopled. Temple had no visitors, except a few
friends who were willing to travel twenty or thirty miles in order to see him,
and now and then a foreigner whom curiosity brought to have a look at the author
of the Triple Alliance.
Here, in May 1694, died Lady Temple. From the time of her marriage we know
little of her, except that her letters were always greatly admired, and that she
had the honor to correspond constantly with Queen Mary. Lady Giffard, who, as
far as appears, had always been on the best terms with her sister-in-law, still
continued to live with Sir William.
But there were other inmates of Moor Park to whom a far higher interest belongs.
An eccentric, uncouth, disagreeable young Irishman, who had narrowly escaped
plucking at Dublin, attended Sir William as an amanuensis, for board and twenty
pounds a year, dined at the second table, wrote bad verses in praise of his
employer, and made love to a very pretty, dark-eyed young girl, who waited on
Lady Giffard. Little did Temple imagine that the coarse exterior of his
dependant concealed a genius equally suited to politics and to letters, a genius
destined to shake great kingdoms, to stir the laughter and the rage of millions,
and to leave to posterity memorials which can perish only with the English
language. Little did he think that the flirtation in his servants' hall, which
he perhaps scarcely deigned to make the subject of a jest, was the beginning of
a long unprosperous love, which was to be as widely famed as the passion of
Petrarch or of Abelard. Sir William's secretary was Jonathan Swift. Lady
Giffard's waiting-maid was poor Stella.
Swift retained no pleasing recollection of Moor Park. And we may easily suppose
a situation like his to have been intolerably painful to a mind haughty,
irascible, and conscious of pre-eminent ability. Long after, when he stood in
the Court of Requests with a circle of gartered peers round him, or punned and
rhymed with Cabinet Ministers over Secretary St. John's Monte-Pulciano, he
remembered, with deep and sore feeling, how miserable he used to be for days
together when he suspected that Sir William had taken something ill. He could
hardly believe that he, the Swift who chide the Lord Treasurer, rallied the
Captain General, and confronted the pride of the Duke of Buckinghamshire with
pride still more inflexible, could be the same being who had passed nights of
sleepless anxiety, in musing over a cross look or a testy word of a patron.
"Faith," he wrote to Stella, with bitter levity, "Sir William spoiled a fine
gentleman." Yet, in justice to Temple, we must say that there is no reason to
think that Swift was more unhappy at Moor Park than he would have been in a
similar situation under any roof in England. We think also that the obligations
which the mind of Swift owed to that of Temple were not inconsiderable. Every
judicious reader must be struck by the peculiarities which distinguish Swift's
political tracts from all similar works produced by mere men of letters. Let any
person compare, for example, the Conduct of the Allies, or the Letter to the
October Club, with Johnson's False Alarm, or Taxation no Tyranny, and he will be
at once struck by the difference of which we speak. He may possibly think
Johnson a greater man than Swift. He may possibly prefer Johnson's style to
Swift's. But he will at once acknowledge that Johnson writes like a man who has
never been out of his study. Swift writes like a man who has passed his whole
life in the midst of public business, and to whom the most important affairs of
state are as familiar as his weekly bills.
"Turn him to any cause of policy, The Gordian knot of it he will unloose,
Familiar as his garter."
The difference, in short, between a political pamphlet by Johnson and a
political pamphlet by Swift, is as great as the difference between an account of
a battle by Mr. Southey, and the account of the same battle by Colonel Napier.
It is impossible to doubt that the superiority of Swift is to be, in a great
measure, attributed to his long and close connection with Temple.
1 Mr. Courtenay (vol. ii. p. 160) confounds Moor Park in
Surrey, where Temple resided, with the Moor Park in Hertfordshire, which is
praised in the Essay on Gardening.
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