estimation in which he was held by that "Sacred Circle of the
Great-Grandmotherhood" to which I myself belong.

In the first place, it was always asserted, with emphasis and even
with acrimony, that he was not a Whig. Gladstone, who did not much
like Whiggery, though he often used Whigs, laid it down that "to be
a Whig a man must be a born Whig," and I believe that the doctrine
is absolutely sound. But Palmerston was born and bred a Tory, and
from 1807 to 1830 held office in Tory Administrations. The remaining
thirty-five years of his life he spent, for the most part, in Whig
Administrations, but a Whig he was not. The one thing in the world
which he loved supremely was power, and, as long as this was secured,
he did not trouble himself much about the political complexion of
his associates. "Palmerston does not care how much dirt he eats,
so long as it is gilded dirt;" and, if gilded dirt be the right
description of office procured by flexible politics, Palmerston
ate, in his long career, an extraordinary amount of it.

Then, again, I remember that the Whigs thought Palmerston very
vulgar. The newspapers always spoke of him as an aristocrat, but
the Whigs knew better. He had been, in all senses of the word, a
man of fashion; he had won the nickname of "Cupid," and had figured,
far beyond the term of youth, in a raffish kind of smart society
which the Whigs regarded with a mixture of contempt and horror.
His bearing towards the Queen, who abhorred him--not without good
reason--was considered to be lamentably lacking in that ceremonious
respect for the Crown which the Whigs always maintained even when
they were dethroning Kings. Disraeli likened his manner to that
of "a favourite footman on easy terms with his mistress," and one
who was in official relations with him wrote: "He left on my