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Rh recalling and sometimes anticipating the broad conceptions of Burke, they are at the same time imbued with precisely those practical qualities which have ever been characteristic of English statesmenship, and were always capable of application to actual conditions. He was no star-gazing philosopher, with thoughts superior to the contemplation of mundane affairs. He had no taste for abstract political dogma. He seems to venture no further than to think that “men should live in some competent state of freedom,” and that the limited monarchical and aristocratic government was the best adapted for his country. “Circumstances,” he writes in the Rough Draft of a New Model at Sea, “must come in and are to be made a part of the matter of which we are to judge; positive decisions are always dangerous, more especially in politics.” Nor was he the mere literary student buried in books and in contemplative ease. He had none of the “indecisiveness which commonly renders literary men of no use in the world” (Sir John Dalrymple). The incidents of his career show that there was no backwardness or hesitation in acting when occasion required. The constant tendency of his mind towards antithesis and the balancing of opinions did not lead to paralysis in time of action. He did not shrink from responsibility, nor show on any occasion lack of courage. At various times of crisis he proved himself a great leader. He returned to public life to defeat the Exclusion Bill. At the revolution it was Halifax who seized the reins of government, flung away by James, and maintained public security. His subsequent failure in collaborating with William is, it is true, disappointing. But the cause was one that has not perhaps received sufficient attention. Party government had come to the birth during the struggles over the Exclusion Bill, and there had been unconsciously introduced into politics a novel element of which the nature and importance were not understood or suspected. Halifax had consistently ignored and neglected party; and it now had its revenge. Detested by the Whigs and by the Tories alike, and defended by neither, the favour alone of the king and his own transcendent abilities proved insufficient to withstand the constant and violent attacks made upon him in parliament, and he yielded to the superior force. He seems indeed himself to have been at last convinced of the necessity in English political life of party government, for though in his Cautions to electors he warns them against men “tied to a party,” yet in his last words he declares “If there are two parties a man ought to adhere to that which he disliked least though in the whole he doth not approve it; for whilst he doth not list himself in one or the other party, he is looked upon as such a straggler that he is fallen upon by both.... Happy those that are convinced so as to be of the general opinions” (Political Thoughts and Reflections of Parties).

The private character of Lord Halifax was in harmony with the greatness of his public career. He was by no means the “voluptuary” described by Macaulay. He was on the contrary free from self-indulgence; his manner of life was decent and frugal, and his dress proverbially simple. He was an affectionate father and husband. “His heart,” says Burnet (i. 492–493, ed. 1833), “was much set on raising his family”—his last concern even while on his deathbed was the remarriage of his son Lord Eland to perpetuate his name; and this is probably the cause of his acceptance of so many titles for which he himself affected a philosophical indifference. He was estimable in his social relations and habits. He showed throughout his career an honourable independence, and was never seen to worship the rising sun. In a period when even great men stooped to accept bribes, Halifax was known to be incorruptible; at a time when animosities were especially bitter, he was too great a man to harbour resentments. “Not only from policy,” says Reresby (Mem. p. 231), “(which teaches that we ought to let no man be our enemy when we can help it), but from his disposition I never saw any man more ready to forgive than himself.” Few were insensible to his personal charm and gaiety. He excelled especially in quick repartee, in “exquisite nonsense,” and in spontaneous humour. When quite a young man, just entering upon political life he is described by Evelyn as “a witty gentleman, if not a little too prompt and daring.” The latter characteristic was not moderated by time but remained through life. He was incapable of controlling his spirit of raillery, from jests on Siamese missionaries to sarcasms at the expense of the heir to the throne and ridicule of hereditary monarchy, and his brilliant paradoxes, his pungent and often profane epigrams were received by graver persons as his real opinions and as evidences of atheism. This latter charge he repudiated, assuring Burnet that he was “a Christian in submission,” but that he could not digest iron like an ostrich nor swallow all that the divines sought to impose upon the world.

The speeches of Halifax have not been preserved, and his political writings on this account have all the greater value. The Character of a Trimmer (1684 or 1685), the authorship of which, long doubtful, is now established, was his most ambitious production, written seemingly as advice to the king and as a manifesto of his own opinions. In it he discusses the political problems of the time and their solution on broad principles. He supports the Test Act and, while opposing the Indulgence, is not hostile to the repeal of the penal laws against the Roman Catholics by parliament. Turning to foreign affairs he contemplates with consternation the growing power of France and the humiliation of England, exclaiming indignantly at the sight of the “Roses blasted and discoloured while lilies triumph and grow insolent upon the comparison.” The whole is a masterly and comprehensive summary of the actual political situation and its exigencies; while, when he treats such themes as liberty, or discusses the balance to be maintained between freedom and government in the constitution, he rises to the political idealism of Bolingbroke and Burke. The Character of King Charles II. (printed 1750), to be compared with his earlier sketch of the king in the Character of a Trimmer, is perhaps from the literary point of view the most admirable of his writings. The famous Letter to a Dissenter (1687) was thought by Sir James Mackintosh to be unrivalled as a political pamphlet. The Lady’s New Year’s Gift: or Advice to a Daughter, refers to his daughter Elizabeth, afterwards wife of the 3rd and mother of the celebrated 4th earl of Chesterfield (1688). In The Anatomy of an Equivalent (1688) he treats with keen wit and power of analysis the proposal to grant a “perpetual edict” in favour of the Established Church in return for the repeal of the test and penal laws. Maxims of State appeared about 1692. The Rough Draft of a New Model at Sea (c. 1694), though apparently only a fragment, is one of the most interesting and characteristic of his writings. It opens with the question: “’What shall we do to be saved in this world?’ There is no other answer but this, ‘Look to your moat.’ The first article of an Englishman’s political creed must be that he believeth in the sea.” He discusses the naval establishment, not from the naval point of view alone, but from the general aspect of the constitution of which it is a detail, and is thus led on to consider the nature of the constitution itself, and to show that it is not an artificial structure but a growth and product of the natural character. We may also mention Some Cautions to the electors of the parliament (1694), and Political, Moral and Miscellaneous Thoughts and Reflections (n.d.), a collection of aphorisms in the style of the maxims of La Rochefoucauld, inferior in style—but greatly excelling the French author in breadth of view and in moderation. (For other writings attributed to Halifax, see Foxcroft, Life of Sir G. Savile, ii. 529 sqq.).

Halifax was twice married, first in 1656 to the Lady Dorothy Spencer—daughter of the 1st earl of Sunderland and of Dorothy Sidney, “Sacharissa”—who died in 1670, leaving a family; and secondly, in 1672, to Gertrude, daughter of William Pierrepont of Thoresby, who survived him, and by whom he had one daughter, Elizabeth, Lady Chesterfield, who seems to have inherited a considerable portion of her father’s intellectual abilities. On the death of his son William, 2nd marquess of Halifax, in August 1700 without male issue, the peerage became extinct, and the baronetcy passed to the Saviles of Lupset, the whole