And it might have been for longer,--had not the English Nation accidentally come to wish, that it should CEASE jumbling NO-whither; and try to jumble SOME-whither, at least for a little while, on important business that had risen for England in a certain quarter.

Had it not been for Jenkins's Ear blazing out in the dark English brain, Walpole might have lasted still a long while.

But his fate lay there:--the first Business vital to England which might turn up; and this chanced to be the Spanish War.

How vital, readers shall see anon.

Walpole, knowing well enough in what state his War-apparatus was, and that of all his Apparatuses there was none in a working state, but the Parliamentary one,--resisted the Spanish War; stood in the door against it, with a rhinoceros determination, nay almost something of a mastiff's; resolute not to admit it, to admit death as soon.