profit, and very necessary for his indebted estate.

"But he had yet higher views, or rather he found it necessary to move
higher, lest he should not be able to keep that. The Earl of Wharton,
now Marquis, both hated and despised him. His large estate, the whole
income of which was spent in the service of the party and his own parts,
made him considerable, though his profligate life lessened that weight
that a more regular conduct would have given him.

"Lord Halifax, who was now advanced to the dignity of Earl, and graced
with the Garter, and First Commissioner of the Treasury, treated him
with contempt. The Earl of Nottingham, who had the real merit of having
renounced the ministry in Queen Anne's reign, when he thought they were
going to alter the succession, was not to be reconciled to Walpole, whom
he looked upon as stigmatised for corruption.

"The Duke of Marlborough, who in his old age was making the same figure
at Court that he did when he first came into it--I mean, bowing and
smiling in the antechamber while Townshend was in the closet,--was not,
however, pleased with the Walpole, who began to behave to him with the
insolence of new favour, and his Duchess, who never restrained her
tongue in her life, used to make public jokes of the beggary she first
knew him in, when her caprice gave him a considerable place, against the
opinion of Lord Godolphin and the Duke of Marlborough.

"To balance these, he had introduced some friends of his own, by his
recommendation to Lord Townshend (who did nothing but by his
instigation). Colonel Stanhope was made the Secretary of State. He had
been unfortunate in Spain, and there did not want those who attributed
it to ill conduct; but he was called generous, brave, true to his