William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne

"My principles are, as I believe, the Whig principles of the revolution. The main foundation of them is the irresponsibility of the crown, the consequent responsibility of ministers, and the preservation of the power and dignity of parliament as constituted by law and custom. With a heap of modern additions, interpolations, facts and fictions, I have nothing to do."

"[T]he possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility."

"If I'd been Lord Grey, I would have knocked him down."

"It is...in my humble opinion, not a desirable thing for us to be dependent for our nourishment on foreign supplies, and I think it would be wise even to sacrifice something of commercial prosperity to the national safety and independence. This...is my strong feeling, and I have great doubt whether our commerce has not been increased by our agricultural prosperity. I entirely agree...that any change in the present system would be an evil."

"I now, my Lords, frankly declare that I resume office unequivocally and solely for this reason—that I will not abandon my Sovereign in a situation of difficulty and distress, and especially when a demand is made upon her Majesty, with which I think she ought not to comply—a demand, in my opinion, my Lords, inconsistent with her personal honour, and which, if acquiesced in, would make her reign liable to all the changes and variations of political parties, and render her domestic life one constant scene of unhappiness and discomfort."

"[T]hough I am ready to consider any measure for the purpose of alleviating that distress, I can never hold forth that this can be produced by changes in the Constitution, or by changing the persons who administer the public affairs. I am greatly opposed to this, because, if the existence of national distress is to be looked on as a reason for organic changes in the Constitution, or in the individuals who compose the Government, there is an end of all stability in public affairs. In every state of the country, I fear it will not be difficult to make out such a case of poverty and suffering, as may upon such principles support an argument for great and immediate alteration. We have lived lately in a time of great change and of many new measures. It is supposed that these measures have produced disappointment, and that the Catholic Emancipation, for instance, has not ended in the tranquillity which was expected from it, and that the Reform-bill has not improved the condition or situation of the people at large, and that those who have recommended these measures do not enjoy with the country the same popularity that they formerly did. How this may be, I know not. But this I do know, that if there is disappointment, it does not arise from the vicious principles, or the ill-working of the measures themselves but from the wild, unfounded, exaggerated expectations of their effects which were indulged in and anticipated. A man does not know himself, nor is he a safe judge of his own conduct. But I believe myself never to have contributed to the raising of these wild and illusory hopes. What I have not done before, I will not do now, because I feel certain that measures from which great, extended, and permanent benefit is intended, will be very likely to terminate in failure, and consequently in general discontent."

"I say, Archbishop, all this reforming gives a deuced deal of trouble, eh? eh? I wish they'd let it all alone...I say, Archbishop, what do you think I'd have done about this slavery business, if I'd had my own way? I'd have done nothing at all! I'd have left it all alone. It's all a pack of nonsense! Always have been slaves in all the most civilised countries; the Greeks and Romans had slaves; however, they would have their fancy, and so we've abolished slavery; but it's a great folly."

"Agitate, agitate, agitate."

"By the bye, there is one thing we haven't agreed upon, which is, what we are to say. Is it to make our corn dearer or cheaper, or to make the price steady? I don't care which: but we had better all be in the same story."

"I wish I were as cocksure of anything as Tom Macaulay is of everything."

"I don't like the middle classes, the higher and lower classes, there's some good in them; but the middle class are all affectation and conceit and pretence and concealment."

"What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass."

"At our Cabinet on November 26 [1838]...Palmerston afterwards brought forward the question of augmenting the Navy. Our Chancellor of the Exchequer looked black at a proposal entailing a necessity for more money and new taxes; but Lord Melbourne said we must come to that some day or the other, and we should not be justified in exposing our shores and our arsenals to the insults and outrages of a Russian fleet. Such an attack might appear to be a mad project; but it was never safe to suppose men incapable of mad projects, and even the unopposed appearance of a Russian fleet in the narrow seas would degrade England in our own eyes and in the eyes of all the world... Lord Melbourne then assumed a tone not usual with him, and said he considered England to have been under the special protection of Providence at certain periods of her history, several of which he mentioned, from the dispersion of the Spanish Armada to the retirement of the French squadron in Bantry Bay; but Melbourne added that "no man ought to count upon such interposition of Divine favour, and use no human effort.""

"The upper classes were utterly pagan. Their clear and courageous testimony remains in those immortal words of Lord Melbourne, who had led the young queen to the throne and long stood there as her protector. "No one has more respect for the Christian religion than I have; but really, when it comes to intruding it into private life——"."

"When the King sent for him [Melbourne] he told Young "he thought it a damned bore, and that he was in many minds what he should do—be Minister or no." Young said, "Why, damn it, such a position never was occupied by any Greek or Roman, and, if it only lasts two months, it is well worth while to have been Prime Minister of England." "By God that's true," said Melbourne; "I'll go.""

"Melbourne's excellent scholarship and universal information remarkably display themselves in society, and he delivers himself with an energy which shows how deeply his mind is impressed with literary subjects."

"Melbourne is a gentleman, liberal and straightforward, with no meanness, and incapable of selfish trickery and intrigue, but he is habitually careless and insouciant, loves ease, and hates contests and squabbles, and though he would never tell a lie, he has probably not that stern and rigid regard for truth which would make him run any risk rather than that of concealing anything or suffering a false impression to be formed or conveyed with respect to any matter he might be concerned in."

"Melbourne swore that Henry VIII was the greatest man who ever lived, and Allen declared if he had not married Anne Boleyn we should have continued Catholics to this day, both of which assertions I ventured to dispute. ... Melbourne loves dashing opinions."

"Yesterday at Holland House; nobody there but Melbourne. We were talking of Reform, and Lord Holland said, "I don't know if we were right about Reform, but this I know, that if we were to propose it at all, we were right in going the lengths we did, and this was Canning's opinion." Melbourne said, "Yes, I know it was, and that was mine, and that was the reason why I was against Reform.""

"Melbourne, to do him justice, is destitute of humbug, does not see things through the medium of his wishes or prejudices, but thinks impartially, and says what he thinks."

"There has been a curious scene with Melbourne at Windsor, which was told me by Jocelyn, who was present. It was at dinner, when Melbourne was sitting next to the Queen. Some allusion was made to passing events and to the expected measure, when Melbourne suddenly broke out, "Ma'am, it is a damned dishonest act." The Queen laughed, and tried to quiet him, but he repeated, "I say again it is a very dishonest act," and then he continued a tirade against abolition of Corn Laws, the people not knowing how to look, and the Queen only laughing. The Court is very strong in favour of Free Trade, and not less in favour of Peel."

"Grey...asked me if Melbourne could be persuaded to change his office for Privy Seal and let Richmond into the Home office. His motive for wishing it was alleged indolence in Melbourne. I combated the grounds and told him a dislike to meddling legislation and his [Melbourne's] careless nonchalant Manner might give him the character of an indolent man with the inobservant, but those who had business with the office did not find him so. He did uncommonly well there and I strongly deprecated his removal even if he wished it."

"He [the Duke of Wellington] said that he was quite sure that the Queen would find Lord Melbourne an honourable man, and one in whom Her Majesty might put confidence; that he was a man apt to treat matters too lightly, or, as he expressed it, apoco curante, but in the main an honest and an honourable man."

"The reasons Melbourne lasted so long in the upper echelons of government was that although by birth, breeding and conviction he was an archetypal Whig, he made such consistently Tory noises that he retained the confidence of Parliament and country far longer than any genuine radical could have done."

"Viscount Melbourne declared himself quite satisfied with the Church as it is; but if the public had any desire to alter it, they might do as they pleased. He might have said the same thing of the Monarchy, or of any other of our institutions; and there is in the declaration a permissiveness and good humour which in public men has seldom been exceeded. Carelessness, however, is but a poor imitation of genius, and the formation of a wise and well-reflected plan of Reform conduces more to the lasting fame of a Minister than that affected contempt of duty which every man sees to be mere vanity, and a vanity of no very high description. But if the truth must be told, our Viscount is somewhat of an impostor. Every thing about him seems to betoken careless desolation: any one would suppose from his manner that he was playing at chuck-farthing with human happiness; that he was always on the heel of pastime; that he would giggle away the Great Charter, and decide by the method of tee-totum whether my Lords the Bishops should or should not retain their seats in the House of Lords. All this is the mere vanity of surprising, and making us believe that he can play with kingdoms as other men can with nine-pins. Instead of this lofty nebulo, this miracle of moral and intellectual felicities, he is nothing more than a sensible honest man, who means to do his duty to the Sovereign and to the Country: instead of being the ignorant man he pretends to be, before he meets the deputation of Tallow-Chandlers in the morning, he sits up half the night talking with Thomas Young about melting and skimming, and then, though he has acquired knowledge enough to work off a whole vat of prime Leicester tallow, he pretends next morning not to know the difference between a dip and a mould. In the same way, when he has been employed in reading Acts of Parliament, he would persuade you that he has been reading Cleghorn on the Beatitudes, or Pickler on the Nine Difficult Points. Neither can I allow to this Minister (however he may be irritated by the denial) the extreme merit of indifference to the consequences of his measures. I believe him to be conscientiously alive to the good or evil that he is doing, and that his caution has more than once arrested the gigantic projects of the Lycurgus of the Lower House. I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings, and to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared; but I accuse our Minister of honesty and diligence; I deny that he is careless or rash: he is nothing more than a man of good understanding, and good principle, disguised in the eternal and somewhat wearisome affectation of a political Roué."

"The Queen don't like his [Robert Peel] manner after—oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to that frank, open, natural and most kind, warm manner of Lord Melbourne."

"Melbourne's career was made possible only by his temperament. He possessed that acute intelligence which sees the good and bad on either side, and which naturally inclines to moderation. The great master of men, the leader of forlorn hopes, cannot succeed without a grain of stupidity. He cannot reach the pinnacle of courage or conviction if he understands the reason of his adversary's action as well as of his own. Melbourne's strength was his weakness also. He knew so much that he was too often reduced to a condition of stable equilibrium."

"Above all, his knowledge and interest were not limited by politics. There was no province of human skill or intelligence which he did not regard with an eager curiosity. He was deeply read in many literatures. He had studied the poets and historians of Greece and Rome with an acute understanding. He could illustrate the events of his own day by the experience of Thucydides. He scorned translations, and read Herodotus, for example, in the original, with great profit to himself. And he could discourse with a ready eloquence of what he knew. None of those who frequented Holland House shone in conversation with a radiance equal to Melbourne's."

"His contempt of fuss persuaded him to wear a cloak of carelessness. He refused to detect a gravity in trivial things. He persistently esteemed politics at their proper value. It was not his habit to pretend that an Act of Parliament would bring into being a new heaven and a new earth. This habit irritated his more pompous colleagues, and being known to the world brought him into an unmerited discredit. Men lacking in humour were busy with reproach against a philosophic temper which they could not understand."

"The truth is, he hated humbug and hypocrisy wherever he found them, and his sense of picturesqueness persuaded him very often to overstate his case. But this over-statement was but another expression of his virtue and honesty; and though England has known some greater Ministers than Melbourne, she has put her trust in few innately wiser or more simply devoted to her interests."