Page:Eight Friends of the Great - WP Courtney.djvu/192

 LORD JOHN TOWNSHEND. great families from East Anglia rose to distinction in the political world at the beginning of the eighteenth century. These were the Walpoles, the Townshends, and the Herveys, and the common link that bound them together was the sturdy figure of sir Robert Walpole. They grew with his growth, when through his shrewd common-sense and his vigorous speech he obtained the supremacy in English affairs. There was eccentricity, to use no harsher term, in all three. The life led by Walpole's successor in the peerage of Orford was disfigured by many blots and his wife's character was not different from his. Their follies may be read throughout the volumes of Horace Walpole's correspondence. The traits of the Herveys gave rise to the witticism that mankind was composed of wise men, mad men, fools and Herveys. Three of them during that century have left in the world's memory the recollection of their peculiarities. One of them was the "Sporus" of Pope's satire, the second was Augustus, the dashing sailor, the first husband of Miss Chudleigh, and the last was Frederick, the clever and whimsical bishop of Derry.

The third family was that of Townshend. The second viscount was Walpole's colleague and brother-in-law. For many years he exercised the leading influence in English politics but Walpole gradually ousted him from his position in the ministry and they quarrelled, drawing swords in a lady's rooms in a royal palace. His heart was in agriculture and his name is chiefly remembered now from his introduction on a large scale into our national system of