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 incumbrance 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.