"The Marquis [of Hartington] was more fashioned [than his father], but with an impatience to do everything, and a fear to do anything, he was always in a hurry to do nothing. His discretion was so great that he would sooner whisper to a man's prejudice, than openly deliver a harmless opinion; and these whispers had the more effect as he was too civil ever to own himself an enemy. Nor was this all malice; if he had had reflection enough to design all the mischief he did he would have been less capable of doing it. They are the tales of the gentle and the good that stab."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandFellows of the Royal SocietyPeople from LondonWhig (British political party) politicians
Original Language: English
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Sources
Horace Walpole, Memoirs and Portraits, ed. Matthew Hodgart (1963), p. 28
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Cavendish%2C_4th_Duke_of_Devonshire
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William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire KG PC FRS (8 May 1720 – 2 October 1764), styled Lord Cavendish before 1729, and Marquess of Hartington between 1729 and 1755, was a British Whig statesman and nobleman who was briefly nominal Prime Minister of Great Britain.
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