Sir Robert Walpole, in one of his letters, thus describes the relations
of a skilful Minister with an accommodating Parliament--the description,
it may be said, having, by lapse of time, acquired the merit of general
inapplicability to the present state of things:--“My dear friend, there
is scarcely a member whose purse I do not know to a sixpence, and whose
very soul almost I could not purchase at the offer. The reason former
Ministers have been deceived in this matter is evident--they never
considered the temper of the people they had to deal with. I have known
a minister so weak as to offer an avaricious old rascal a star and
garter, and attempt to bribe a young rogue, who set no value upon money,
with a lucrative employment. I pursue methods as opposite as the poles,
and therefore my administration has been attended with a different
effect.” “Patriots,” elsewhere says Walpole, “spring up like mushrooms.
I could raise fifty of them within four-and-twenty hours. I have raised
many of them in one night. It is but refusing to gratify an
unreasonable or insolent demand, and _up starts a patriot_.”