2 Charles^ Second Vlscoiint Townsliend. 
reasons which need not be dealt with here, the King determined 
on his dismissal ; but, in order to soften the blow, was induced 
to offer him the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland. This, however, 
was refused in a letter in which indignation was veiled by 
sarcasm. “ I am highly sensible,” he wrote to the King, “ of 
the honour which your Majesty confers on me by condescending 
to appoint me Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; but as my domestic 
affairs do not permit me to reside out of England, I should 
hold myself to be totally unworthy of the choice which your 
Majesty has been pleased to make, if I were capable of enjoying 
the large appointments annexed to that honourable office with- 
out doing the duty ” * — the fine irony of this passage being 
aimed at Sunderland, who had filled the post since the King’s 
accession, but had never set foot in Ireland during his tenure of 
office. 
Lord Townshend’s dismissal was, however, so markedly un- 
popular that the King afterwards prevailed upon him to accept 
the Lord Lieutenancy as a temporary post until a more important 
one could be found, but in 1717 political combinations and in- 
trigues resulted in his second overthrow. But only for a time. 
In 1720 he became President of the Council, and shortly 
afterwards joint Secretary of State with Walpole. For the 
next few years he was virtually ]\Iinister for Foreign Affairs, and 
was frequently absent from England in attendance on the King. 
In 1730 his political vicissitudes were brought to a close by 
his final resignation of office. He immediately betook himself 
to his seat at Eainham, and never again returned to London, 
“ in spite,” says Lord Stanhope, “ of the most flattering advances 
from the Opposition, who were prepared to receive him with 
open arms.” ^ Thenceforward, until his death in 1738, he 
devoted himself to the management of his Norfolk estates, to 
experimenting in the farming practices which he had observed 
abroad, and, above all, to the field cultivation of tuimips, and to 
improvements in the rotation of crops. So zealous was his 
advocacy of root culture that he was generally known by the 
sobriquet of “ Turnip Townshend,” and supplied Pope with an 
example for his Horatian illustrations : — 
Why, of two brothers, rich and restless, one 
Ploughs, burns, manures, and toils from sun to sun ; 
The other slights for women, sports and wines. 
All Townshend’s turnips and all Gi-osvenor’s mines. 
Is known alone to that Divining Power 
Who forms the genius in the natal hour. 
* Coxe’s Memoirs of Sir It. Walpole, vol. i. 191. 
^ History of England from the Peace of Utrecht, vol. ii. o. xv. 
