Canning, who were associated with Lord Grey,
entertained high opinions of Lord George's talents for official and
administrative service, so that he was requested to accept office,
but he declined. These offers were repeatedly renewed, under the same
auspices, and as often rejected. He desired to be unfettered in his
parliamentary position, and freely gave up the chances of Downing Street
for those of the race-course. He voted for the reform bill, and afforded
a cordial and constant support to that and nearly every measure of the
whig administration, until Lord Stanley abandoned the party. To that
noble lord he was personally and politically much attached, and of Mr.
Spring Rice, afterwards Lord Monteagle, he also had a high opinion; but
no friendship nor influence was sufficient to retard what may be called
his retrograde course: like his friend, Lord Stanley, he became less and
less a Whig, and finally stood in the foreground of Conservatism. He was
a warm supporter of the Irish Roman Catholics, but did not appear ever
to have understood their political tactics. His sympathy for what
is termed Pusey-ism may have accounted for his leanings to the Irish
Romanist party, although in this respect, according to Mr. Disraeli, "he
was for the Established Church, and nothing more." According to the
same author he was a Whig of 1688. It is admitted that his personal
prejudices were strong; but those who allow this maintain that he had no
prejudice as to things, but examined all doctrines and theories with
a strong common sense and a clear judgment. His painstaking to inquire
after truth is much vaunted by his biographer; but his speeches as
leader of the Protectionists do not reveal this quality,--for while
no orator of the time, not even Sir Robert Peel, relied more upon
statistics, or at least made a larger use of them, no advocate of any
cause was ever more unfortunate in the data selected as groundwork for
argument. Such was the man in whom the conservative opposition found
a leader, when despairing of being again able to form an effective and
organised opposition. It was on the 27th of February, 1846, that Lord
George made his _debut_ in his new capacity. His speech was excellent in
everything but its logic. Modest yet courageous in manner, plain but not
ungraceful in style, his address told upon the house. The tone, however,
was too aristocratic for the place and the times, and his arguments
proved that he had not mastered t