Page:Life of William Shelburne (vol 1).djvu/137

Rh and pompous Poetry. Lucan was his favourite poet among the ancients, and Queen Elizabeth's Earl of Essex, his favourite author and object of imitation. He admired his letters, and had them almost by heart. He excelled most in writing, of which he appeared to have a great habit. He was insolent and cowardly, at least the greatest political coward I ever knew. He was rash and timid, accustomed to ask advice of different persons, but had not sense and sagacity to distinguish and digest, with a perpetual apprehension of being governed, which made him, when he followed any advice, always add something of his own in point of matter or manner, which sometimes took away the little good which was in it or changed the whole nature of it. He was always upon stilts, never natural except now and then upon the subject of women. He felt all the pleasure of power to consist either in punishing or astonishing. He was ready to abandon his nearest friend if attacked, or to throw any blame off his own shoulders. He could be pleasant in company when he let, and did not want for some good points, so much as for resolution and knowledge of the world to bring them into action. He excelled as far as I could observe in managing the interior of a Court, and had an abundant share of art and hypocrisy. This made all the first part of his rôle easy.

"He panted for the Treasury, having a notion that the King and he understood it from what they had read about revenue and funds while they were at Kew. He had likewise an idea of great reformations, which all men who read the theory of things, and especially men who look up at being Ministers, and want to remove and lower those that are, make a great part of their conversation. He had likewise a confused notion of rivalling the, all which notions presently vanished when he came to experience the difficulties of it, and to find that dealing with mankind was the first thing necessary, of which he began to find himself entirely incapable."

Such being the opinion which Shelburne was gradually beginning to form of the character of the First Lord of