despised--such as Lord Beaconsfield and Bishop Wilberforce--found a
saving clause in his judgment if he could truthfully say, "He helped me
with the chimney-sweeps," or, "He felt for the wretched operatives."

But even apart from questions of humane sentiment and the supreme
interests of social legislation, I always felt in my intercourse with
Lord Shaftesbury that it would have been impossible for him to act for
long together in subordination to, or even in concert with, any
political leader. Resolute, self-reliant, inflexible; hating compromise;
never turning aside by a hair's-breadth from the path of duty; incapable
of flattering high or low; dreading leaps in the dark, but dreading more
than anything else the sacrifice of principle to party--he was
essentially the type of politician who is the despair of the official
wire-puller.

Oddly enough, Lord Palmerston was the statesman with whom, despite all
ethical dissimilarity, he had the most sympathy, and this arose partly
from their near relationship and partly from Lord Palmerston's
easy-going habit of placing his ecclesiastical patronage in Lord
Shaftesbury's hands. It was this unseen but not unfelt power as a
confidential yet irresponsible adviser that Lord Shaftesbury really
enjoyed and, indeed, his political opinions were too individual to have
allowed of binding association with either political party. He was, in
the truest and best sense of the word, a Conservative. To call him a
Tory would be quite misleading. He was not averse from Roman Catholic
emancipation. He took no prominent part against the first Reform Bill.
His resistance to the admission of the Jews to Parliament was directed
rather against the method than the principle. Though not friendly to
Women's Suffrage, he said: "I shall feel myself bound to conform to the
national will, but I am not prepared to stimulate it."