Note 287 — Chapter XVI

This character of Lord Granville is not one of the author’s happiest efforts. He has, however, hit off some of the more salient traits of that nobleman’s character with great cleverness in his “Correspondence.” Lord Mahon and Mr. Macaulay have subsequently gone over the same ground with brilliant success, but the following sketch by Lord Chesterfield, to which they are both indebted, is so full of life and spirit, that the editor cannot refrain from inserting it.

“He had great parts and a most uncommon share of learning for a man of quality. He was one of the best speakers in the House of Lords, both in the declamatory and the argumentative way. He had a wonderful quickness and precision in seizing the stress of a question, which no art, no sophistry, could disguise in him. In business he was bold, enterprising, and overbearing. He had been bred up in high monarchical, that is, tyrannical principles of government, which his ardent and imperious temper made him think were the only rational and practical ones. He would have been a great first Minister in France, little inferior, perhaps, to Richelieu; in this government, which is yet free, he was neither ill-natured nor vindictive, and had a great contempt for money—his ideas were all above it. In social life he was an agreeable, good-humoured, and instructive companion, a great but interesting talker.

“He degraded himself by the vice of drinking, which, together with a great stock of Greek and Latin, he had brought from Oxford, and practised ever afterwards. By his own industry he had made himself master of all the modern languages, and had acquired great knowledge of the law. His political knowledge of the interests of princes and of commerce was extensive, and his notions were just and great. His character may be summed up in nice precision, great decision, and overbearing presumption.”—Chesterfield’s Miscell. Works, vol. iv. p. 49.—E.