any public affairs from this present February, 1680, will put the reader in possession of the exact condition of things previous to the departure of Sidney as envoy to the Hague.
"Upon my arrival in England (in the spring of 1678–9, from the Hague), I met with the most surprising scene that ever was. The Long Parliament dissolved, and the resolution taken for the Duke's
of lively parts and quick observation, a man of letters among men of the world. Mere scholars were dazzled by the Ambassador and Cabinet Counciller, mere politicians by the Essayist and Historian. But neither as a writer nor as a statesman can we allot to him any very high place. As a man he seems to us to have been excessively selfish, but very sober, wary, and far-sighted in his selfishness; to have known better than most people what he really wanted in life; and to have pursued what he wanted with much more than ordinary steadiness and sagacity; never suffering himself to be drawn aside either by bad or good feelings. It was his constitution to dread failure more than he desired success; to prefer security, comfort, repose, leisure, to the turmoil and anxiety which are inseparable from greatness; and this natural languor of the mind, when contrasted with the malignant energy of the keen and restless spirits among whom his lot was cast, sometimes appears to resemble the moderation of virtue. But we must own, that he seems to us to sink into littleness and meanness when we compare him, we do not say with any high ideal standard of morality, but with many of those frail men who, aiming at noble ends, but often drawn from the right path by strong passions and strong temptations, have left to posterity a doubtful and chequered fame."—Macaulay's Crit. and His. Essays, iii., 106.
