OLIYER GOLDSMITH S LIFE AND TIMES. [BOOK in.
1765. great commoner, " an admirable and lasting system" could
^Btsr, not then be formed, lie also believed that the only substitute
for Pitt's genius was Rockingham's sense and good faith, and
that on this plain foundation might be gradually raised a
party that should revive whig purity and honour, and last
when Pitt should be no more. Somewhat thus, too, the
honest and brave Duke of Cumberland may have reasoned ;
when to his hapless nephew the King, again crying out to
him in utter despair, and imploring him, with or without
Pitt, to save him from Greorge Grrenville and the Duke of
Bedford, he gave his final counsel. Lord Eockinghain was
summoned; consented, with his party, to take office ; and
was sworn in First Lord on the 8th of July. Lord
Shelburne would not join without Pitt: but a young whig
duke (Grafton), of whom much was at that time expected,
gave in his adhesion; and General (afterwards Marshal)
Conway, Cumberland's personal friend and the cousin and
favourite of Horace Walpole,* a braver soldier than politician,
* There is no pleasanter trait in Horace "Walpole than his affection fur Conway,
•which continued steady and unalterable to the last, and was manifested in many
generous disinterested ways. See letters lately published in the Grenintte Corre-
spondence, ii. 296-9, 320-7, 335-44, &c. The brave quiet soldier had hardly seemed
to me the man to have inspired so strong a feeling, till I read some fragments of
his ,early correspondence with Walpole lately published by Lord Albeiruuie from
the originals in Sir Denis le Merchant's possession. I subjoin one or two passages
which show Conway in a character that but for these letters I should have hesitated
(with all my admiration for his sterling sense and manliness) to ascribe to him. The
date is at the close of Sir Robert Walpole's ministry, more than twenty years before
that to which I have brought my text. "Would you believe it, Horry," writes Con-
way in the autumn of 1740, •' 'I have been hitherto in this dreary city all this live-long
" summer ? But I caa't bear summer people, and so I live a good deal alone . . .
" The marriage of a great silk-dyer to Miss------, a young lady of great beauty,
" merit, and fortune, and the death of an eminent distiller in Oornhill, is all that
"I find worth your notice. Adieu, dear Horry, .Service to Gray,. . . . Look
"here, Eony, here is just such a bit of paper as you wrote to mo upon, and
"if I can help it,I won't write a word more upon it. I have just written to
" Selwyn, and told him that I had received your note and would answer it
" soon; but it is now come into niy head to do it this minute, that I may
" scold you for the shortness of your last, before my resentment is cooled, for