y others as a scheme ill-suited to the
character of an age adverse to any further religious endowments, it must
be acknowledged that no member of the Protectionist party had any just
cause of complaint against Lord George for the expression of an opinion
which he had always upheld, and of his constancy to which he had fairly
given his friends notice. This was so generally felt that the repining
died away. The Jewish question, as it was called, revived these
religious emotions. These feelings, as springing from the highest
sentiment of our nature, and founded, however mistaken in their
application, on religious truth, are entitled to deep respect and
tenderness; but no one can indulge them by the compromise of the highest
principles, or by sanctioning a course which he really believes to be
destructive of the very object which their votaries wish to cherish.

As there are very few Englishmen of what is commonly called the Jewish
faith, and as therefore it was supposed that political considerations
could not enter into the question, it was hoped by many of the followers
of Lord George Bentinck that he would not separate himself from his
party on this subject, and very earnest requests and representations
were made to him with that view. He was not insensible to them; he gave
them prolonged and painful consideration; they greatly disquieted him.
In his confidential correspondence he often recurs to the distress
and anxiety which this question and its consequences as regarded his
position with those friends to whom he was much attached occasioned him.
It must not, therefore, be supposed that, in the line he ultimately
took with reference to this question, he was influenced, as some have
unkindly and unwarrantably fancied, by a self-willed, inexorable, and
imperious spirit. He was no doubt, by nature, a proud man, inclined even
to arrogance, and naturally impatient of contradiction; but two
severe campaigns in the House of Commons had already mitigated these
characteristics: he understood human nature, he was fond of his party,
and, irrespective of other considerations, it pained his ardent and
generous heart to mortify his comrades. It was therefore not in any
degree from temper, but from principle,--from as pure, as high, and as
noble a sense of duty as ever actuated a man in public life,--that Lord
George Bentinck ultimately resolved that it was impossible for him
to refuse to vote for the removal of what are commonly call