192

niSTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

X.\IV.

11198 .

most delicate generosity. But it may well be suspectedthat, if the verses of Alpinus and Eannius, of Baviusand Mmvius, had come down to us, we might see Mmcenasrepresented as the most niggardly and tasteless of humanbeings, nay as a man who, on system, neglected andpersecuted all intellectual superiority. It is certain thatMontague was thus represented by contemporary scrib-blers. They told the world in essays, in letters, indialogues, in ballads, that he would do nothing for any-body without being paid either in money or in some vileservices; that he not only never rewarded merit, buthated it whenever he saw it; that he practised the meanestarts for the purpose of depressing it; that those whom heprotected and enriched were not men of ability and virtue,but wretches distinguished only by their sycophancy andtheir low debaucheries. And this was said of the manwho made the fortune of Joseph Addison, and of IsaacNewton.

Nothing had done more to diminish the influence ofMontague in the House of Commons than a step whichhe had taken a few weeks before the meeting of theParliament. It would seem that the result of the gene-ral election had made him uneasy, and that he hadlooked anxiously round him for some harbour in whichhe might take refuge from the storms which seemed tobe gathering. While his thoughts were thus employed,he learned that the Auditorship of the Exchequer hadsuddenly become vacant. The Auditorship was held for