With great genius and very respectable talents, he has now neither the
title nor the credit of prime minister; more active colleagues carry
off the most savoury morsels which their voracious creatures
immediately devour; our misfortunes and reforms have diminished the
number of favours; either through pride or through indolence I am but
a bad suitor, and if at last I obtain something, it may perhaps be on
the eve of a fresh revolution, which will in an instant snatch from me
that which has cost me so many cares and pains."
Such a letter speaks for itself. Gibbon might well say that he entered
parliament without patriotism and without ambition. The only redeeming
feature is the almost cynical frankness with which he openly regards
politics from a personal point of view. However, it may be pleaded
that the letter was written to a bosom friend at a moment of great
depression, and when Gibbon's pecuniary difficulties were pressing him
severely. The Coalition promised him a place, and that was enough; the
contempt for all principle which had brought it about was not thought
of. But even this minute excuse does not apply to the way in which,
years after, when he was in comfort at Lausanne, he refers to the
subject in his Memoirs.
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