administration of Walpole was the longest which has occurred since the days of Queen Elizabeth. He was probably the most dexterous party leader which England ever had; "equally skilled to win popular favor, to govern the House of Commons, and to influence and be influenced by public opinion."
Descended from an ancient and respectable family, he was born at Houghton, in Norfolkshire, on the 26th day of August, 1676. Part of his boyhood was spent at Eton, and he was for two years a member of the University of Cambridge; but in neither of these places did he give any indications of superior talents. In early life he was remarkable for nothing but his high spirits and dislike of study. The only benefit he seems to have obtained from his early education, was a facility which he acquired at Eton of conversing in Latin. This became to him afterward an important instrument of power. George I. could speak no English, and Walpole no German: so they compromised the matter when he was made Prime Minister; and all the communications between him and his master, involving the highest interests of the kingdom, were carried on in "very bad Latin."
The first impulse given to the mind of Walpole arose from his being elected a member of Parliament at the age of twenty-four. A vein was now struck which laid open the master principle of his character. It was a spirit of intense ambition. From this moment he laid aside all his sluggishness and love of ease; he threw himself at once into the arena of political strife; and the whole cast of his mind and feelings, as well as the character of the times, went to secure his early ascendency. He had naturally great force and penetration of intellect; a clear judgment; a dauntless spirit; a thorough knowledge of human nature, especially on its weak side; infinite dexterity in carrying on or counteracting political intrigues; a self-possession which never forsook him in the most trying circumstances; and a perfectly unscrupulous freedom in the adoption of every means that seemed necessary to the accomplishment of his designs. The only acquired knowledge which he brought with him into public life, was a thorough acquaintance with finance. It was precisely the knowledge that was needed at that juncture; and it laid the foundation, at no distant period, of the long and almost despotic sway which he exercised over English affairs.
On taking his seat in Parliament, in 1700, he joined himself to the Whig party, and in the year 1708 was brought into office as Secretary at War. Thrown out soon after by a change of ministry, which arose from the silly prosecution of Sacheverell, he was restored to office in 1714, when the Whigs came into power under George I.
From this time, for nearly thirty years, he was an active member of the government, during twenty of which he was Prime Minister. To this office he was called, by general consent, in 1721, on the explosion of the South Sea project, which filled the whole island with consternation and ruin. He had opposed the scheme and predicted its failure from the outset, though he had the sagacity to profit largely by speculating in the stock; and now that his predictions were fulfilled, every eye was turned to Walpole, as the only one fitted, by his financial skill, to repair the shattered credit of the country. He was made First Lord of the Treasury, and Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the second of April, 1721.
Walpole had now reached the summit of his ambition; and if he had only been just and liberal to his political associates, he might, perhaps, even in that faithless and intriguing age, have gone on to enjoy an undisputed supremacy. But his ambition was domineering and exclusive. He was jealous of every man in his own party, whose growing influence or force of character seemed likely to raise him above the station of a humble dependant. In about two years he quarreled with Carteret, one of the most gifted men of the age, who came in with him as Secretary of State, simply because he would allow of no colleague, but was resolved to rule at the council board as sole master. Within two years more, he endeavored to put Pulteney out of the way by a specious offer of the peerage; and thus made the most eloquent speaker in the House, before the time of Chatham, his enemy for life. Chesterfield was turned out from his station as Lord Steward of the Household, with circumstances of personal insult, because he was against the Excise Bill, which Walpole himself soon after abandoned. Others of the nobility, with a number of military officers, among whom was Lord Chatham, were treated with the same indignity. Thus he alienated from him, by degrees, nearly all the talent of the Whig party.