Page:The lives of the poets of Great Britain and Ireland to the time of Dean Swift - Volume 4.djvu/277

Rh We might here enumerate more frolics of the ſame kind which he either projected, or engaged in, but we chuſe rather to omit them as they reflect but little honour on the marquis.—We ſhall only obſerve, that before he left France, an Engliſh gentleman of diſtinction expoſtulating with him, for ſwerving ſo much from the principles of his father and his whole family, his lordſhip anſwered, ‘That he had pawned his principles to Gordon the Pretender’s banker for a conſiderable ſum; and till he could repay him, he muſt be a Jacobite, but that when that was done he would again return to the Whigs.’

About the latter end of December 1716, the marquis arrived in England, where he did not remain long, till he ſet out for Ireland; in which kingdom, on account of his extraordinary qualities, he had the honour done him of being admitted, though under age, to take his ſeat in that auguſt aſſembly of the houſe of peers, to which he had a right as earl of Rathfarnam, and marquis of Catherlough. Here he eſpouſed a very different intereſt from that which he had ſo lately embraced. He diſtinguiſhed himſelf on this occaſion as a violent partisan for the miniſtry; and acted in all other reſpects, as well in his private as public capacity, with the warmeſt zeal for the government. The ſpeeches which he made in the houſe upon many occaſions, uttered with ſo much force of expreſſion, and propriety of emphaſis, were an irreſiſtable demonſtration of his abilities, and drew upon him the admiration of both kingdoms. The marquis’s arguments had very great influence on which ſide of the queſtion ſoever he happened to be.—No nobleman, either in that or the Engliſh houſe of peers, ever acquitted himſelf with greater reputation, or behaved with a more becoming dignity than he did during this ſeſſion of the Iriſh parliament. In