"His falsehood was so constant and notorious, that it was rather his profession than his instrument. It was like a fictitious violin, which is hung out of a music shop to indicate in what goods the tradesman deals; not to be of service, nor to be depended on for playing a true note. He was so well known that he could only deceive by speaking truth. His plausibility was less an artifice than a habit; and his smiles were so excited that, like the rattle of the snake, they warned before he had time to bite. Both his heart and his face were brave; he feared neither danger nor detection. He was so fond of insincerity as if he had been the inventor, and practised it with as little caution as if he thought nobody else had discovered the secret."
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Prime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from IrelandPeople from DublinUniversity of Oxford alumniWhig (British political party) politicians
Original Language: English
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Horace Walpole, Journal of the Reign of King George the Third, From the Year 1771 to 1783, Vol. II (1859), pp. 566-567
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/William_Petty%2C_2nd_Earl_of_Shelburne
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William Petty, 2nd Earl of Shelburne
William Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne KG PC (2 May 1737 – 7 May 1805; known as the Earl of Shelburne between 1761 and 1784, by which title he is generally known to history), was an Anglo-Irish Whig statesman who was the first home secretary in 1782 and then prime minister from 1782 to 1783 during the final months of the American War of Independence, in which he negotiated the Treaty of Paris with the United States. He succeeded in securing peaceful United Kingdom–United States rel
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