My name is Argyle, you may well think it strange,
To live at the court and never to change.
Ballad.
Few names deserve more honourable mention in the history of Scotland, during
this period, than that of John, Duke of Argyle and Greenwich. His talents as a
statesman and a soldier were generally admitted; he was not without ambition,
but "without the illness that attends it"--without that irregularity of thought and
aim, which often excites great men, in his peculiar situation, (for it was a very
peculiar one), to grasp the means of raising themselves to power, at the risk of
throwing a kingdom into confusion. Pope has distinguished him as
Argyle, the state's whole thunder born to wield,
And shake alike the senate and the field.
He was alike free from the ordinary vices of statesmen, falsehood, namely, and
dissimulation; and from those of warriors, inordinate and violent thirst after self-
aggrandisement.
Scotland, his native country, stood at this time in a very precarious and doubtful
situation. She was indeed united to England, but the cement had not had time to
acquire consistence. The irritation of ancient wrongs still subsisted, and betwixt
the fretful jealousy of the Scottish, and the supercilious disdain of the English,
quarrels repeatedly occurred, in the course of which the national league, so
important to the safety of both, was in the utmost danger of being dissolved.
Scotland had, besides, the disadvantage of being divided into intestine factions,
which hated each other bitterly, and waited but a signal to break forth into action.
In such circumstances, another man, with the talents and rank of Argyle, but
without a mind so happily regulated, would have sought to rise from the earth in
the whirlwind, and direct its fury. He chose a course more safe and more
honourable. Soaring above the petty distinctions of faction, his voice was raised,
whether in office or opposition, for those measures which were at once just and
lenient. His high military talents enabled him, during the memorable year 1715, to
render such services to the House of Hanover, as, perhaps, were too great to be
either acknowledged or repaid. He had employed, too, his utmost influence in
softening the consequences of that insurrection to the unfortunate gentlemen
whom a mistaken sense of loyalty had engaged in the affair, and was rewarded
by the esteem and affection of his country in an uncommon degree. This
popularity, with a discontented and warlike people, was supposed to be a subject
of jealousy at court, where the power to become dangerous is sometimes of itself
obnoxious, though the inclination is not united with it. Besides, the Duke of
