thought: These two he managed with a great deal
of art; for the lady he employed all the little arts
that win her sex, particularly, I observed, that he
frequently took hold of her hand, as in raptures, to
kiss it, in such a manner as made me suspect she did
not always draw it back empty; but this he did so
slily, that it was not easy for anybody to be certain
of it: The man on the other hand, he plied his
own way with politics, remonstrating to him the several
things he had before the throne; which however, as
might be presumed from his manner of attending to
them, seemed to make little impression; but when he
came to lay before him the great advantages that might
accrue from thence to their mistress, and consequently
to him, he heard him with the utmost eagerness and
satisfaction; at last, having plainly told him, that
he himself should be a considerable gainer by it,
and thereupon, that every thing that came to his hands
of that nature should be at his service: As a
sort of token or earnest he kissed his hand in the
same manner he had the lady’s, and so retired;
by these and the like means he soon brought over both
parties to him, who, with a whisper or two, procured
him the royal licence; whereupon he immediately fell
to making up a metal, if it deserved the name, of
a very strange composition, wherewith he purposed
to refit the implements of that useful deity, but in
such manner, that for the base metal he put into them,
he would take care to draw away from them an infinitely
more than proportionable quantity of gold and silver,
and thereby render him almost incapable of taking flight
to foreign countries; nay, at last perhaps utterly
so, when under pretence of their not being completed,
he should filch in more of his metal, and filch away
more of theirs.
[Footnote 2: The Duchess of Kendal and Sir Robert
Walpole. [S.]]
These things being therefore prepared, he sends ’em
over to his neighbours, and there endeavoured to get
them admitted by fair words and promises, being too
sensible that they were not of themselves the most
willing to accept of his favour, and indeed he was
not deceived; for they being advertised of his designs,
had taken the alarm, and had almost to a man united
in one common faction against him. This generous
ardour had first taken hold of the most active and
important part, and if I may be allowed to call it,
the heart of this body, from thence was on one side
by a quick passage, and in its more refined parts,
communicated through the blood to the contemplative,
and reasoning, the head, which it inspired with noble
thoughts and resolutions; and on the other, to the
inferior extremities, which were thereby rendered more
expedite and readier to obey the dictates of the head
in a rougher method of opposition, from each of which
extremities being carried back to its fountain, it
was returned to them from thence, and so backwards
and forwards, till the circulation and union were confirmed
and completed, the sordid unnatural, offensive parts