ROBERT, the eldest son of Sir Edward Harley, who greatly distinguished himself as a parliamentary partisan in the reign of Charles the Second, was born in Bow-street, Coventgarden, on the 5th of December, 1661. He was educated by the Rev. Mr. Buck, at Shelton, Oxfordshire. At the Revolution, he assisted his father in raising a troop of horse, and was sent by the gentlemen of Worcester, to tender their services to the Prince of Orange, and to acquaint him with the posture of affairs in that part of the country. After the accession of William and Mary, he was chosen member of parliament for Tregony; and subsequently served for Radnor, from 1690, until he was called up to the house of lords.

Even thus early, he seems to have been a busy and industrious politician, taking a part in almost every important measure that came under discussion. Bishop Burnet speaks of him in the following terms:-"Harley was a man of a very noble family, and very eminently learned, much turned to politics, and of a very restless ambition. He was a man of great industry and application; and knew forms, and the records of parliament, so well, that he was capable both of lengthening out, and perplexing debates. Nothing could answer his aspiring temper. He was of a staunch Whig family, yet joined with the Tories to create jealousies. Not being considered at the Revolution as he thought he deserved, he had set himself to oppose the court in every thing, and to find fault with the whole administration. The high church party trusted him; yet he had so particular a

dexterity, that he induced the dissenters also to depend upon him, and between them it was agreed that he should be speaker." He was elevated to that dignity in the session 1700-1, and retained it during three successive parliaments.

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From the moment of her accession, Queen Anne regarded Harley with peculiar favour. In April, 1704, he was sworn of her privy-council; and, in May following, became principal secretary of state, which post he resigned in 1708. The Duke of Marlborough, and his friends, having been removed from office, by the exertions of their political opponents, Harley, in August, 1710, was constituted a commissioner of the treasury, and chancellor of the exchequer. On the 8th of March following, he narrowly escaped assassination,-the Marquis of Guiscard, French papist, suspected of treasonable practices, having, while under examination before the privy-council, stabbed him with a penknife. Guiscard was instantly secured and sent to Newgate, where he died about a week after his committal. In consequence of this outrage, an act was passed, whereby an attempt on the life of a privy-counsellor was declared to be a capital felony; and a clause was added, indemnifying those who, in aiding Harley, "did wound or bruise the Sieur de Guiscard whereby he received his death." Both houses addressed Queen Anne on this occasion, and declared their belief, "that Mr. Harley, by his fidelity to her majesty, and zeal for her service, had drawn on him the hatred of all the abettors of popery and faction."

Having recovered from the effects of the wound, which there is some reason to suspect was intended for Bolingbroke, he appeared in the house of commons on the 25th of April, when the speaker addressed him in a very complimentary speech, containing these remarkable expressions: "Sir, if your fidelity to the queen could ever have been doubted, you have now given the most ample proofs of it, and it would be presumption in me to speak of your eminent abilities. Your very enemies own your value, by their unwearied efforts against your person. God be thanked, they have hitherto been disappointed; and may the same providence, which has so wonderfully preserved you, and that has raised you up to be an instrument of good in a very important juncture, continue to preserve your invaluable life." In his answer, Harley said, "This honour is an ample reward for the greatest merit. I am sure it so far exceeds my deserts, that all I can do or suffer for the public service, will still leave me in debt to your goodness. Your favour, this day, is deeply imprinted in my heart; and, whenever I look upon my breast, it will put me in mind of the thanks due to God, my duty to the queen, and the gratitude I must always owe to this honourable house."

Harley was now the idol of the people, and a great favourite with the queen, by whom, in 1711, he was created Earl of Oxford and Mortimer. On the 29th of May, 1711, he was appointed lord high treasurer of Great Britain, and, on the 1st of June, took the oath of office, in the court of chancery, being attended, on that occasion, by all the chief nobility in the kingdom. Never, in short, was minister so highly honoured: the whole direction of affairs was at his pleasure; the people honoured him as the champion of the protestant faith, and the queen placed implicit confidence in him, as the wisest and most attached of her servants. The intrigues of Bolingbroke, however, with whose superior genius he was wholly incompetent to struggle, began to loosen the foundations of his power, at the moment when Queen Anne's declining health raised warm and dangerous discussions as to her successor. The dying sovereign,

it was believed, favoured the interests of her exiled brother, and Bolingbroke was suspected of similar views; while the Earl of Oxford, with a vacillating, unsettled policy, which made him contemptible to all parties, hesitated so long as to his course of action, that his opinion ceased to be important. The friends of the Elector of Hanover, being very powerful, at length forced him to retire from office. He resigned on the 27th of July, 1714, and the queen died on the 1st of August ensuing.

At the accession of George the First, he was treated at court with such marked coldness and neglect, that his friends strongly urged him to retire to the continent, until they could make his peace; but the earl, with a lofty courage, which did him infinite credit, and evinced a full consciousness of his political integrity, refused, by his flight, to confirm the malicious reports circulated by his enemies. Yet his danger proved to be extreme; for, on the 10th of June, 1715, he was impeached of high treason, and committed to the tower. On his conveyance thither he was attended by an immense multitude, loudly exclaiming, "High church and Oxford for ever!" In consequence of the tumults on this occasion, the well-known act was passed, by which it is made felony, without benefit of clergy, for any persons, unlawfully assembled, to the number of twelve, to continue together one hour, after being required to disperse by a proper officer, and after having heard the riot act publicly read.

The charges preferred against him were singularly vague; so far from making out a case of treason, his enemies merely proved that he had been guilty of indiscreetly temporising in his official capacity, from a vain wish to be equally in favour with both Whigs and Tories. The impeachment was far from popular; it reflected no credit on the government, and probably originated in personal malice. After having suffered a long confinement, he petitioned to be brought to trial; and obtained an honourable acquittal, from his peers, on the 1st of July, 1717. He passed the remainder of his life in learned ease; and died on the 21st of May, 1724. He was twice married, and had three children by his first wife.

The following character of the Earl of Oxford appeared soon after his decease:"During the time he was prime minister, notwithstanding such a weight of affairs rested on him, he was easy and disengaged in private conversation. He was endowed with great learning, and was a great favourer and protector of it. Intrepid by nature, as well as by the consciousness of his own integrity, he would have chosen rather to fall by an impeachment, than to have been saved by an act of grace: sagacious to view into the remotest consequences of things, all difficulties fled before him. He was a courteous neighbour; a firm and affectionate friend; and a kind, generous, and placable enemy; sacrificing his just resentments, not only to public good, but to common intercession and acknowledgment. He was a despiser of money; and, what is yet more rare, an uncorrupted minister of state; which appeared, by his not having made the least accession to his fortune." This character is, doubtless, correct in some points, but too laudatory in others. The earl appears to have accomplished his views by a talent for intrigue, and a fertility of invention as to minor expedients, rather than by any display of exalted intellect. His wavering conduct, during the latter

part of the life of Queen Anne, shows that he was rather a weak man; and his famous project of the South Sea Company, which he fondly imagined would have relieved the nation from her difficulties, proves that he was not, on all important occasions, a wise one.

An author himself, (having published three polemical pamphlets, and a letter to Swift, for correcting and improving the English language,) he appears to have delighted in the society of the literary wits of his day. Pope, Gay, Swift, Prior, and Parnell, evinced their gratitude for his hospitality, and patronage to men of letters, by embalming his name in their compositions. Pope has particularly celebrated him : he describes him as having possessed

A soul supreme, in each hard instance tried,
Above all pain, all anger, and all pride;
The rage of power, the blast of public breath;
The lust of lucre, and the dread of death.

He was not only a great encourager of literature, but the greatest collector in his time, of curious books and manuscripts, especially of those concerning the history of this country, and formed the nucleus of the celebrated Harleian library, which was completed by his son, and now constitutes one of the richest treasures of the British Museum.

THIS distinguished character, the grandson of Philip, first Earl of Chesterfield, was born in 1673. Early in the reign of William the Third, he accompanied his father, Alexander Stanhope, to Spain; and afterwards made the tour of France and Italy. He then served a campaign in Flanders as a volunteer, and was rewarded, first, with a company, and soon after with a regiment, for the bravery he displayed at the siege of Namur.

In 1700, he went into parliament as member for Newport, in the Isle of Wight. In 1704, he served, with his regiment, in the war undertaken for the purpose of seating Charles, second son of the Emperor Leopold, on the

throne of Spain. In this campaign, Colonel Stanhope and the whole of the men under his command were surrounded, and compelled to surrender themselves prisoners of war. He was, however, soon exchanged; and, after having been promoted to the rank of brigadier-general, greatly distinguished himself under Lord Peterborough, during the siege of Barcelona; at the fall of which he was despatched to England, and brought over letters to Queen Anne, from the Spanish king, in one of which the brigadier-general was warmly eulogized for "his great zeal, attention, and most prudent conduct."

From this period he remained in

England, fulfilling his parliamentary duties in a very creditable manner, until 1708, when he was raised to the rank of major-general, and sent out to Spain in the double capacity of ambassador, and commander-in-chief of the British forces in that country. In the month of August in this year, he attacked the island of Majorca; and made so artful a disposal of his men, as to impress the enemy with a belief that they more than thrice exceeded their actual amount. An immediate capitulation of the garrison was the consequence of this stratagem, the subsequent discovery of which so deeply mortified the governor, that he committed suicide. In the early part of the following campaign, General Stanhope obtained victory after victory, and at length planted the standard of England on the battlements of Madrid; having previously, it is said, killed the Spanish general with his own hand. He soon afterwards fell into the hands of the enemy, and was not exchanged until

1712.

On the accession of George the First, he was appointed one of the secretaries of state, and in 1716, accompanied the king to his electorate. While on the continent, he is accused of having intrigued with Sunderland, against his colleagues, Townshend and Walpole, on whose resignation, in 1717, he became first lord of the treasury and chancellor of the exchequer. Soon after,

he was raised to the peerage, by the title of Baron Stanhope of Elvaston: in 1718, he was created an earl, and exchanged his offices for the secretaryship held by Sunderland.

Shortly afterwards, he went abroad for the purpose of attempting to negotiate an alliance between France, England, and the emperor; but his mission was unsuccessful. On his return to England, he brought in a bill for the repeal of several clauses in the test and corporation act. In 1721, he accompanied the king to Hanover, although he had, as usual, been appointed one of the lords justices during his majesty's absence. Soon after his return, he was so dreadfully irritated in the house of lords, by an abusive speech from the Duke of Wharton, that he burst a bloodvessel in his head, and expired on the following day, February 5th, 1721.

The death of Earl Stanhope was equally regretted by the king and the nation. As a statesman, if we except his duplicity to Walpole and Townshend, his conduct was open, liberal, and praiseworthy. He displayed abilities above mediocrity, both in the cabinet and the field; but he can scarcely be said to have been a great minister, or, as it has been asserted, to have possessed all the talents of Marlborough without his weaknesses. He was amiable in private life, very learned, and particularly fond of studying ancient history.

THIS eminent man, the eldest son of Horatio, first Viscount Townshend, was born on the 10th of March, 1674. He took his seat in the house of peers on attaining his majority, and became, successively, lord-lieutenant of the county of Norfolk, a commissioner for treating of an union with Scotland, captain-yeoman of Queen Anne's guard, a privy-counsellor, and one of the plenipotentiaries for negociating a peace with France, in 1709. His colleague on this occasion, was the Duke of Marlborough. Their diplomatic efforts were unsuccessful;-the French king

having refused to ratify the preliminaries. In the following year, Townshend, who had remained at the Hague, again entered into a negociation for peace with the French government; but, as on the previous occasion, his labours proved abortive. Queen Anne having dismissed her Whig ministers, Townshend resigned his embassy, and on his return to England, was deprived of his post as captain-yeoman of the guard, and censured by the house of commons, in which Tory influence at that time predominated, for having signed the preliminaries of the barrier treaty; a