Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/46

20 this country, Bentincks, Nassaus, Keppels, &c.—Admiral Keppel was no exception. The grants he gave them were enormous, indiscreet, unjust, and unmerited. If he had divided the Irish forfeitures, which Parliament luckily stopped him from heaping on his Dutch favourites, among the French Protestants, he would have insured the tranquillity of Ireland for evermore, and promoted the wealth and industry of both Kingdoms. He came to this country as he would come to a campaign, to answer his political purposes in the first instance; and, in the next, to provide for his followers. His sagacity proved itself on all occasions.

"The Revolution produced a still greater real than apparent change in Government opinion and manners. (See Cibber's Life, which, though an idle book, is interesting. ) He says, for some time before the Revolution, it was in the mouth of everybody that there would be a Revolution, but nobody knew how it would be effected. King William made a barbarous use of the . King James says that he was not his brother's son, but his picture at Bowood says he was.

" and were both feminine characters. I take Queen Mary to have had most sense and most force of the two. She made the best of wives to a saturnine, disagreeable husband, to say no worse of him. Queen Anne's reign was in fact the reign of the Duke of Marlborough, owing to the ascendant which the Duchess of Marlborough had acquired over the Queen, which she abused abominably, as well as that she had over her husband. She was a most extraordinary person, but like most women ran wild with the habits of power, having nobody to control her. She used to say that it was not fear of the Devil that kept her out of a line of intrigue, but she was determined to be in no man's power. After power, avarice appears to have been her ruling passion. Mr. Bryan, who was tutor to the present Duke of Marlborough, a man of great accuracy as well as worth, told me that he found among the papers at Blenheim proof of