Page:Defence of Shelburne.djvu/19

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[13]

demns the spirit of the democratic body, but thinks the grandeur of the aristocracy impaired, if domestic pomp and outward magnificence are in the least neglected.

If a man is ridiculous, Mr. Fox will laugh at him; and if he is a rascal, he is very apt to tell him so.—The Earl of Shelburne never hurts a man in his presence, but delivers himself with a generous indignation against those who are absent.

Mr. Fox thinks himself right, and virulently reprobates those he thinks wrong. He is no apostate, and gives little quarter to those who are.—The Earl of Shelburne never offends the ear of the greatest knave upon earth with a harsh epithet: he knows that severity of reproach may create desperation, and therefore never irritates.—Mr. Fox has in this respect so little artifice, that he would censure an obnoxious measure, even to the Sovereign who employed him, with a harshness for which the sincerity of his counsel could hardly compensate, and which perhaps rendered his advice something more than barely unpalatable.—The Earl of Shelburne has been so industrious, even before he became a minister, that he never omitted to offer some incense,

when-