carriage; but Colonel Churchill being with you, and his chariot driving up first, your honour stepped into that, and your own came home empty.”  Johnstone, triumphing on his own veracity, and pushing the examination farther, Sir Robert’s coachman recollected that, as he left Palace-yard, three men, much muffled, had looked into the empty chariot.  The mystery was never farther cleared up; and my father frequently said it was the only instance of the kind in which he had ever seen any appearance of a real design.

The second subject that I promised to mention, and it shall be very briefly, was the revival of the Order of the Bath.  It was the measure of Sir Robert Walpole, and was an artful bank of thirty-six ribands to supply a fund of favours in lieu of places.  He meant, too, to stave off the demand for garters, and intended that the red should be a step to the blue, and accordingly took one of the former himself.  He offered the new order to old Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, for her grandson the duke, and for the Duke of Bedford, who had married one of her grand-daughters. (98) She haughtily replied, they should take nothing but the garter.  “Madam,” said Sir Robert coolly, “they who take the bath will the sooner have the garter.”  The next year he took the latter himself with the Duke of Richmond, both having been previously installed knights of the revived institution.

Before I quit King George I. I will relate a story, very expressive of his good-humoured presence of mind.

On one of his journeys to Hanover his coach broke.  At a distance in view was the chateau of a considerable German nobleman.  The king sent to borrow assistance.  The possessor came, conveyed the king to his house, and begged the honour of his Majesty’s accepting a dinner while his carriage was repairing; and, while the dinner was preparing, begged leave to amuse his Majesty with a collection of pictures which he had formed in several tours to Italy.  But what did the king see in one of the rooms but an unknown portrait of a person in the robes and with the regalia of the sovereigns of Great Britain!  George asked whom it represented.  The nobleman replied, with much diffident but decent respect, that in various journeys to Rome he had been acquainted with the Chevalier de St. George. who had done him the honour of sending him that picture.  “Upon my word,” said the king instantly, “it is very like to the family.”  It was impossible to remove the embarrassment of the proprietor with more good breeding.

(97) At the time of the Preston rebellion, a Jacobite, who sometimes furnished Sir Robert with intelligence, sitting alone with him one night, suddenly putting his hand into his bosom and rising, said, “Why do not I kill you now?” Walpole starting up, replied, “Because I am a younger man and a stronger.”  They sat down again, and discussed the person’s information But Sir Robert afterwards had reasons for thinking that the spy had no intention of assassination,