"In private life he was good natured, Chearfull, social. Inelegant in his manners, loose in his morals. He had a coarse wit, which he was too free of for a Man in his Station, as it is always inconsistent with dignity. He was very able as a Minister, but without a certain Elevation of mind...He was both the ablest Parliament man, and the ablest manager of a Parliament, that I believe ever lived...Money, not Prerogative, was the chief Engine of his administration, and he employed it with a success that in a manner disgraced humanity...When he found any body proof, against pecuniary temptations, which alass! was but seldom, he had recourse to still a worse art. For he laughed at and ridiculed all notions of Publick virtue, and the love of one's Country, calling them the Chimerical school boy flights of Classical learning; declaring himself at the same time, No Saint, no Spartan, no reformer. He would frequently ask young fellows at their first appearance in the world, while their honest hearts were yet untainted, well are you to be an old Roman? a Patriot? you will soon come off of that, and grow wiser. And thus he was more dangerous to the morals, than to the libertys of his country, to which I am persuaded that he meaned no ill in his heart... His Name will not be recorded in History among the best men, or the best Ministers, but much much less ought it to be ranked among the worst."
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PrisonersPrime Ministers of the United KingdomPoliticians from EnglandChancellors of the ExchequerWhig (British political party) politicians
Original Language: English
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Sources
Lord Chesterfield, quoted in Colin Franklin (ed.), Lord Chesterfield. His Character and 'Characters (1993), p. 114
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_Walpole
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Robert Walpole
Robert Walpole, 1st Earl of Orford (26 August 1676 – 18 March 1745), known as Sir Robert Walpole, was a British statesman and Whig politician who is generally regarded as the de facto first prime minister of Great Britain.
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