of employing Swiss regiments in the colonies.  This speech he has also himself preserved in the second volume of his “Memoires.”  In 1757 he was active in his endeavours to save the unfortunate Admiral Byng.  Of his conduct upon this occasion he has left a detailed account of his “Memoires.”  This concludes all that can be collected of his public life, and at the general election of 1768 (26) he finally retired from parliament.

Upon this occasion he writes thus to George Montagu,-” As my senatorial dignity is gone, I shall not put you to the expense of a cover; and I hope the advertisement will not be taxed, as I seal it to the paper.  In short, I retain so much iniquity from the last infamous parliament, that, you see, I would still cheat the public.  The comfort I feel in sitting peaceably here, instead of being at Lynn, in the high fever of a contested election, which, at best, Would end in my being carried about that large town, like a figure of a pope at a bonfires is very great.  I do not think, when that function is over, that I shall repent my resolution.  What could I see but sons and grandsons playing over the same knaveries that I have seen their fathers and grandfather’s act?  Could I hear oratory beyond my Lord Chatham’s?  Will there ever be parts equal to Charles Towns@ends?  Will George Grenville cease to be the most tiresome of beings?” (27)

>From this time Walpole devoted himself more than ever to his literary and antiquarian pursuits; though the interest he still, in society at least, took in politics, is obvious, from the frequent reference to the subject in his letters.

In the course of his life, his political opinions appear to have undergone a great change.  In his youth, and indeed till his old age, he was not only a strenuous Whig, but, at times, almost a Republican.  How strong his opinions were in this sense may be gathered, both from the frequent confessions of his political faith, which occur in his letters, and from his reverence for the death-warrant of Charles the First, of which he hung up the engraving in his bed-room, and wrote upon it with his own hand the words “Major Charta.”  The horrors of the French Revolution drove him, in the latter period of his life, into other views of politics; and he seems to have become, in theory at least, a Tory, though he probably would have indignantly repudiated the appellation, had it been applied to him.

Even during the earlier part of his career, his politics had varied a good deal (as, indeed, in a long life, whose do not?); but, in his case, the cause of variation was a most amiable one.  His devoted attachment to Marshal Conway, which led him, when that distinguished man was turned out of his command of a regiment, and of his place at court, in 1764, (28) to offer, with much earnestness, to divide his fortune with him caused him also to look with a favourable eye upon the government of the day, whenever Mr. Conway was employed, and