object; for he forgave easily; and friendship was often the consequence of his resentment. With all this, he had great strength and firmness of mind, was above all temptations of interest in his public conduct, and boasted that he was the only man the King had never duped. His opinions upon that subject were steady and uniform, as was his opposition from the time he left office. He had an unaffected and ardent zeal for what he thought the interest of his country, and to that he would have been capable of making any sacrifice. It was from that consideration he broke with Lord Chatham, who he thought betrayed Great Britain to America in the contest about the Stamp Act, and reconciled himself to his brother Mr. Grenville; not from caprice but from conviction, and by the same opinions he abided to the hour of his death. He entertained a most sovereign contempt for the Royal closet without any exception, which he never wished to conceal, even at his table, and carried it to the exulting publicly over every instance of humiliation that the times have brought upon the Crown. This alone was his connection with Wilkes and with the City, which however had been long discontinued when he died. When his brother died, whom he lamented as sincerely as if he had never hated him, he saw there was no further prospect for his ambition, and his conduct for the last years of his life had as much dignity in it in his retirement as it had been before marked with faction and intemperance in the heat of his career. His understanding, if not equal to the first-rate, was at the head of the second; more solid than brilliant. He was not easily deceived by specious argument, and his experience had taught him a knowledge of mankind that made it difficult to impose upon him. Though he read little, he was not incapable of application, but he could not have continued it in business. His eloquence, if it deserves that name, consisted more in the strength and vehemence of his attack, and the saying boldly whatever others would have had the most management about, than in graceful and elegant
