connected, unsupported, he remains in office without interest or dignity, as if the income were an equivalent for all loss of reputation. Without spirit or judgment to take an advantageous moment for retiring, he submits to be insulted as long as he is paid for it. But even his abject conduct will avail him nothing. Like his great archetype, the vapour on which he rose deserts him, and now
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops."[1]
Shelburne himself frequently declared that he belonged to no party; and a great statesman of the previous century had recorded the opinion that even the best party is but a kind of conspiracy against the rest of the nation. But Sir George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, was rewarded by being called a Trimmer after his own book, but in no complimentary sense, by both the factions whose ill-will he had equally gained. The leader who leaves one party without frankly going over to the other may beckon to the people with his hand in the hope that they will listen; but his too frequent fate has been to be met, like the prophet of old, with the angry cry: "What is thy country, and of what people art thou."
After, however, making full allowance for the circumstances of his political position, it remains clear from the unanimity of contemporary testimony that certain faults of manner greatly contributed to injure Shelburne's reputation. While no man obtained more general recognition of his abilities in office, or was able to surround himself with a more devoted body of friends, an overstrained affectation of extreme courtesy, and a habit of using unnecessary compliments in conversation, gained him the reputation with the general public of saying more than he really meant. Even in France, where studied civility would, in those days at least, have met with greater acceptance, his style was not universally popular. An old blind lady of eighty-two writes: "Lord Shelburne has flattered me extremely; he assures me that he shall come again next year singly and solely for the pleasure of seeing me."[2]
- ↑ Milton's Paradise Lost, book ii.
- ↑ Lettres de Madame du Deffand, ii. 597, ed. 1810.
