"I liked him, and, in many respects, admired him. Personally I mean, for his abilities and acquirements commanded more than ordinary admiration. His sentiments and expressions were always generous, his feelings noble; he hated duplicity, meanness, violence; he never thought that brilliant exploits compensated for the want of moral worth; and he would call a man a villain, a rogue, or an oppressor, whether he were arrayed like Solomon, or in tatters like Lazarus. These super-eminent and mighty talents, though never openly and directly employed for God's service, were, at least, never perverted to evil uses. Is there a sentence in any of his writings to offend decency, morality, the Christian faith?—not one. I did not know till now how much I was attached to him. May I never forget his true and noble speech made, at my request, in the House of Commons on behalf of the factory children! Their prayers, I trust, ascended for him to the Throne of Grace."
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Lord Shaftesbury, diary entry (3 January 1860), quoted in Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G. Vol. III (1886), p. 73
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Thomas_Babington_Macaulay
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Thomas Babington Macaulay
Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay (25 October 1800 – 28 December 1859) was a nineteenth century British poet, historian and Whig politician.
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