Lord George Bentinck: A Political Biography

THE political career of Lord George Bentinck was peculiar. He had, to use his own expression, “sate in eight parliaments without having taken part in any great debate,” when remarkable events suddenly impelled him to advance and occupy not only a considerable but a leading position in our public affairs. During three years under circumstances of great difficulty he displayed some of the highest qualities of political life; courage and a lofty spirit; a mastery of details which experience usually alone confers; a quick apprehension and a clear intelligence; indomitable firmness; promptness, punctuality, and perseverance which never failed; an energy seldom surpassed, and a capacity for labour which was perhaps never equalled. At the very moment when he had overcome many contrarieties and prejudices; when he had been most successful in the house of commons, and sustained only by his own resoun «> had considerably modified the legislation of the government which he opposed on a measure of paramount importance; when the nation, which had long watched him with interest, began to congratulate itself on the devotion of such a man to the hu»iness of the country, he was in an instant taken from us. Then it was, that the memory of the pa>i and the hope of the future blending together, all men seemed to mourn over this untimely end, and there was that pang in the public heart which accompanies the unexpected disappearance of a strong character.