benches from which eloquent voices thundered nightly against the tyranny and perfidy of courts.  So many young politicians were caught by these declamations that Sir Robert, in one of his best speeches, observed that the Opposition consisted of three bodies, the Tories, the discontented Whigs, who were known by the name of the Patriots, and the Boys.  In fact almost every young man of warm temper and lively imagination, whatever his political bias might be, was drawn into the party adverse to the Government; and some of the most distinguished among them, Pitt, for example, among public men, and Johnson, among men of letters, afterwards openly acknowledged their mistake.

The aspect of the Opposition, even while it was still a minority in the House of Commons, was very imposing.  Among those who, in Parliament or out of Parliament, assailed the administration of Walpole, were Bolingbroke, Carteret, Chesterfield, Argyle, Pulteney, Wyndham, Doddington, Pitt, Lyttelton, Barnard, Pope, Swift, Gay, Arbuthnot, Fielding, Johnson, Thomson, Akenside, Glover.

The circumstance that the Opposition was divided into two parties, diametrically opposed to each other in political opinions, was long the safety of Walpole.  It was at last his ruin.  The leaders of the minority knew that it would be difficult for them to bring forward any important measure without producing an immediate schism in their party.  It was with very great difficulty that the Whigs in opposition had been induced to give a sullen and silent vote for the repeal of the Septennial Act.  The Tories, on the other hand, could not be induced to support Pulteney’s motion for an addition to the income of Prince Frederic.  The two parties had cordially joined in calling out for a war with Spain; but they now had their war.  Hatred of Walpole was almost the only feeling which was common to them.  On this one point, therefore, they concentrated their whole strength.  With gross ignorance, or gross dishonesty, they represented the Minister as the main grievance of the State.  His dismissal, his punishment, would prove the certain cure for all the evils which the nation suffered.  What was to be done after his fall, how misgovernment was to be prevented in future, were questions to which there were as many answers as there were noisy and ill-informed members of the Opposition.  The only cry in which all could join was, “Down with Walpole!” So much did they narrow the disputed ground, so purely personal did they make the question, that they threw out friendly hints to the other members of the Administration, and declared that they refused quarter to the Prime Minister alone.  His tools might keep their heads, their fortunes, even their places, if only the great father of corruption were given up to the just vengeance of the nation.