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of one man. Hitherto Montague’s career had been moresplendidly and uninterruptedly successful than that of anymember of the House of Commons, since the Houjse ofCommons had begun to exist. And now fortune hadturned. By the Tories he had long been hated as a Whig:and the rapidity of his rise, the brilliancy of his fame, andthe unvarying good luck which seemed to attend him, hadmade many Whigs his enemies. He was absurdly com-pared to the upstart favourites of a former age, Carr andVilliors, men whom he resembled in nothing but in thespeed with which he had mounted from a humble to a loftyposition. They had, without rendering any service to theState, without showing any capacity for the conduct ofgreat affairs, been elevated to the highest dignities, inspite of the murmurs of the whole nation, by the merepartiality of the Sovereign. Montague owed everythingto his own merit and to the public opinion of his merit.With his master he appears to have had very little inter-course , and none that was not official. He was in truth aliving monument of what the Revolution had done for theCountry. The Revolution had found him a young studentin a cell by the Cam, poring on the diagrams which illus-trated the newly discovered laws of centripetal and centri-fugal force, writing little copies of verses, and indulgingvisions of parsonages with rich glebes, and of closes in oldcathedral towns; had developed in him new talents; hadheld out to him the hope of prizes of a very different sortfrom a rectory or a prebend. His eloquence had gained

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