Not in any age, or turning-point in History, had England answered the Destinies in such a dialect as now under its Newcastle and National Palaver." 3.

OF WALPOLE, AS RECORDING ANGEL.

"Walpole's _George the Second_ is a Book of far more worth than is commonly ascribed to it; almost the one original English Book yet written on those times,--which, by the accident of Pitt, are still memorable to us.

But for Walpole,--burning like a small steady light there, shining faithfully, if stingily, on the evil and the good,--that sordid muddle of the Pelham Parliaments, which chanced to be the element of things now recognizable enough as great, would be forever unintelligible.

He is unusually accurate, punctual, lucid; an irrefragable authority on English points.