t them
to the verge of ruin.

His powers of mind and his acquirements were not denied, even by his
detractors. The most acrimonious Tories were forced to admit, with an
ungracious snarl, which increased the value of their praise, that he had
all the intellectual qualities of a great man, and that in him alone,
among his contemporaries, brilliant eloquence and wit were to be found
associated with the quiet and steady prudence which ensures success
in life. It is a remarkable fact, that, in the foulest of all the many
libels that were published against him, he was slandered under the name
of Cicero. As his abilities could not be questioned, he was charged with
irreligion and immorality. That he was heterodox all the country vicars
and foxhunting squires firmly believed; but as to the nature and extent
of his heterodoxy there were many different opinions. He seems to have
been a Low Churchman of the school of Tillotson, whom he always
loved and honoured; and he was, like Tillotson, called by bigots a
Presbyterian, an Arian, a Socinian, a Deist, and an Atheist.

The private life of this great statesman and magistrate was malignantly
scrutinised; and tales were told about his libertinism which went on
growing till they became too absurd for the credulity even of party
spirit. At last, long after he had been condemned to flannel and chicken
broth, a wretched courtesan, who had probably never seen him except in
the stage box at the theatre, when she was following her vocation below
in a mask, published a lampoon in which she described him as the master
of a haram more costly than the Great Turk's. There is, however, reason
to believe that there was a small nucleus of truth round which this
great mass of fiction gathered, and that the wisdom and selfcommand
which Somers never wanted in the senate, on the judgment seat, at the
council board, or in the society of wits, scholars and philosophers,
were not always proof against female attractions. [478]

Another director of the Whig party was Charles Montague. He was often,
when he had risen to power, honours and riches, called an upstart by
those who envied his success. That they should have called him so may
seem strange; for few of the statesmen of his time could show such a
pedigree as his. He sprang from a family as old as the Conquest; he was
in the succession to an earldom, and was, by the paternal side, cousin
of three earls. But he was the younger son of a younger brother