retainers. [70] In consequence
of this defection, Halifax became prime minister, as far any minister
could, in that reign, be called prime minister. An immense load of
business fell on him; and that load he was unable to sustain. In wit and
eloquence, in amplitude of comprehension and subtlety of disquisition,
he had no equal among the statesmen of his time. But that very
fertility, that very acuteness, which gave a singular charm to his
conversation, to his oratory and to his writings, unfitted him for the
work of promptly deciding practical questions. He was slow from very
quickness. For he saw so many arguments for and against every possible
course that he was longer in making up his mind than a dull man would
have been. Instead of acquiescing in his first thoughts, he replied
on himself, rejoined on himself, and surrejoined on himself. Those who
heard him talk owned that he talked like an angel: but too often, when
he had exhausted all that could be said, and came to act, the time for
action was over.

Meanwhile the two Secretaries of State were constantly labouring to draw
their master in diametrically opposite directions. Every scheme,
every person, recommended by one of them was reprobated by the other.
Nottingham was never weary of repeating that the old Roundhead party,
the party which had taken the life of Charles the First and had plotted
against the life of Charles the Second, was in principle republican,
and that the Tories were the only true friends of monarchy. Shrewsbury
replied that the Tories might be friends of monarchy, but that they
regarded James as their monarch. Nottingham was always bringing to the
closet intelligence of the wild daydreams in which a few old eaters of
calf's head, the remains of the once formidable party of Bradshaw and
Ireton, still indulged at taverns in the city. Shrewsbury produced
ferocious lampoons which the Jacobites dropped every day in the
coffeehouses. "Every Whig," said the Tory Secretary, "is an enemy of
your Majesty's prerogative." "Every Tory," said the Whig Secretary, "is
an enemy of your Majesty's title." [71]

At the treasury there was a complication of jealousies and quarrels.
[72] Both the First Commissioner, Mordaunt, and the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, Delamere, were zealous Whigs but, though they held the same
political creed, their tempers differed widely. Mordaunt was volatile,
dissipated, and generous. The wits of that time laughed at the way in
which