hich it is difficult to praise or blame without the
risk of doing them more or less than justice. He has talents which
the event has proved to be sufficient to make him the second (and,
now that Napoleon is gone, the first general) of the age, but
which could not make him a tolerable Minister. Confident,
presumptuous, and dictatorial, but frank, open, and good-humoured,
he contrived to rule in the Cabinet without mortifying his
colleagues, and he has brought it to ruin without forfeiting their
regard. Choosing with a very slender stock of knowledge to take
upon himself the sole direction of every department of Government,
he completely sank under the burden. Originally imbued with the
principles of Lord Castlereagh and the Holy Alliance, he brought
all those predilections with him into office. Incapable of
foreseeing the mighty events with which the future was big, and of
comprehending the prodigious alterations which the moral character
of Europe had undergone, he pitted himself against Canning in the
Cabinet, and stood up as the assertor of maxims both of foreign
and domestic policy which that great statesman saw were no longer
fitted for the times we live in. With a flexibility which was more
remarkably exhibited at subsequent periods, when he found that the
cause he advocated was lost, the Duke turned suddenly round, and
surrendered his opinions at discretion; but in his heart he never
forgave Mr. Canning, and from that time jealousy of him had a
material influence on his political conduct, and was the primary
motive of many of his subsequent resolutions. This flexibility has
been the cause of great benefits to the country, but ultimately of
his own downfall, for it has always proceeded from the pressure of
circumstances and considerations of convenience to himself, and
not from a rational adaptation of his opinions and conduct to the
necessities and variations of the times. He has not been
thoroughly true to any principle or any party; he contrived to
disgust and alienate his old friends and adherents without
conciliating or attaching those whose measures he at the eleventh
hour undertook to carry into execution. Through the whole course
of his political conduct selfish considerations have never been
out of sight. His opposition to Canning's Corn Bill was too gross
to admit of excuse. It was the old spite bursting forth, sharpened
by Canning's behaviour to him in forming his Administration,
which, if it was not co