popular now; it was odious then, and men were impatient with those who
took no side, or changed sides for reasons good or bad.

Macaulay--who never knew a doubt, whose way was clear and easy in the
struggles of his day, when reform and free trade in corn were obviously
desirable and necessary--writes with contemptuous severity of the
profligacy of politicians from the Restoration to the accession of the
House of Hanover. "One who in such an age is determined to attain civil
greatness must renounce all thought of consistency. Instead of affecting
immutability in the midst of mutation, he must always be on the watch
for the indications of a coming reaction. He must seize the exact moment
for deserting a falling cause. He has seen so many institutions from
which much had been expected produce mere disappointment, that he has no
hope of improvement. There is nothing in the state which he could not,
without a scruple, join in defending or destroying." Compare with these
scathing words his estimate of the character of Halifax, the Whig: "The
most estimable of the statesmen who were formed in the corrupt and
licentious Whitehall of the Restoration. He was called inconsistent
because the relative position in which he stood to the contending
parties was perpetually varying. As well might the Polar Star be called
inconsistent because it is sometimes to the east and sometimes to the
west of the pointers. To have defended the ancient and legal
constitution of the realm against a seditious populace at one
conjunction, and against a tyrannical government at another; to have
been the foremost champion of order in the turbulent Parliament of 1680,
and the foremost champion of liberty in the servile Parliament of 1685;
to have been just and merciful to the Roman Catholics in the days of the
Popish Plot, and to the Exclusionists in the days of the Rye House Plot;
this was a course which contemporaries, heated by passion, and deluded
by names and badges, might not unnaturally call fickle, but which
deserves a very different name from the late justice of posterity." More
than one British statesman, Tory, be it observed, as well as Whig,
needs and deserves a defence like this. Alter names and dates, and it
will serve as a vindication of Wilkins' deficiency in a "constant mind
and settled principles." Therefore the paradox is true that a Trimmer
may be a man of firmness and courage; one who is bold enough to make
many enemies and few friends