Note 75 — Chapter I · N THE LIFE OF A STATESMAN,

Budgell has recorded that he attended Lord Halifax and Addison in a barge to Greenwich to meet George the First from Hanover. Halifax said he expected to have the Treasurer's staff, and to have great influence; that he would endeavour to avoid some of the errors of late reigns, and make his master a great king, and would recommend Addison to be a secretary of state. Addison, as Budgell says, blushed, and thanked him for such honourable friendship, but declared that his merits and ambition did not carry him to so high a place. Halifax was, however, circumvented in all his speculations: Walpole acquired more influence, or succeeded by intrigue; and the effects mortified Lord Halifax so acutely, that a pulmonary fever was the consequence, and death soon put a quietus upon his lordship's unsuccessful struggle for power.