recognize that as he grew old, and partly as the result of his own example, a purer race of political men was growing up. He made no friends, he had no intimate companions, he lived apart and alone. Even Shelburne, of whom he evidently had a better opinion than of most of his contemporaries, was never admitted to his real confidence. Their correspondence nearly always shows Shelburne addressing his chief like some doubtful worshipper at the shrine of a god, whose oracular utterances are as likely to prove his destruction as his salvation. Such was Chatham, the inspired statesman, and the most commanding figure of English History during the eighteenth century. The small band of statesmen which in his declining days still recognized him as their chief, and now followed him to the grave, chose Shelburne as his successor at this perilous conjuncture.[1]
It was the opinion of Walpole that Lord Temple practically died on the same day as his brother-in-law.[2] Nor was the actual event long delayed. While driving in the park at Stowe, this once celebrated statesman, "the ignis fatuus of a brighter epoch,"[3] was thrown out of a chaise on a heap of bricks, fractured his skull and died. He had once been a leader, but had not a single follower at the moment of his decease, and after throwing away three separate opportunities of ruling the nation, lived to see it forget his existence. Shelburne, who both as a neighbour and a statesman had frequent opportunities of studying his character, has left the following account of the celebrated owner of Stowe.
"Lord Temple
"Lord Temple was one of those characters that it is impossible to draw without antithesis. Pride was his ruling passion, which even his best friends must allow
- ↑ A motion made by Shelburne on May the 13th that the House of Lords should attend Chatham's funeral in Westminster Abbey was lost by a single vote (Parliamentary History, xix. 1233-1234). Shelburne was one of the eight Peers who acted as Assistant Mourners. Colonel Barré bore the banner of the Barony of Chatham.
- ↑ Walpole, Correspondence, vii. 253.
- ↑ Ibid. vii. 251.
