good spirits carried him through the scrape
somehow. He made the rounds of Leyden with his would-be adversary,
calling in turn upon each of his many friends, and obtaining from each,
in the presence of his companion, the assurance that Townshend had
never been known to speak of Johnstone slightingly or discourteously
behind his back. The episode, trivial in itself, gains a kind of
gravity by the illustration it affords of Townshend's character all
through Townshend's short career. The impossibility of restraining an
incorrigible tongue, and the unreadiness to follow out the course of
action to which his words would seem to have committed him, were the
distinguishing marks of Townshend's political existence. No man, no
party, nor no friend could count on the unflinching services of
Townshend. His conduct was as irresponsible as his eloquence was
dazzling. In his twenty years of public life he had but one
purpose--to please and to be praised; and to gain those ends he
sacrificed consistency and discretion with a light heart. The beauty
of his person and the fluent splendor of his speech went far towards
the attainment of an ambition which was always frustrated by a fatal
levity. In the fine phrase of Burke, he was a candidate for
contradictory honors, and his great aim was to make those agree in
admiration of him who never agreed in anything else.

It has been given to few men to desire fame more ardently, and to
attain it more disastrously, than Charles Townshend. If we may
estimate the man by the praises of his greatest contemporary, no one
better deserved a fairer fortune than fate allotted to him. Burke
spoke of Townshend as the delight and ornament of the House of Commons,
and the charm of every private society which he honored with his
presence. Though his passion for {112} fame might be immoderate, it
was at least a passion which is the instinct of all great souls. While
Burke could rhapsodize over Townshend's pointed and finished wit, his
refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment, his skill and power in
statement, his excellence in luminous explanation, Walpole was no less
enthusiastic in an estimate that contrasted Townshend with Burke.
According to Walpole, Townshend, who studied nothing with accuracy or
attention, had parts that embraced all knowledge with such quickness
that he seemed to create knowledge instead of seeking for it. Ready as
Walpole admits Burke's wit to have been, he declares th