those who were prejudiced against his doctrines. When he bestowed
a poor benefice, and he had many such to bestow, his practice was
to add out of his own purse twenty pounds a year to the income.
Ten promising young men, to each of whom he allowed thirty pounds
a year, studied divinity under his own eye in the close of
Salisbury. He had several children but he did not think himself
justified in hoarding for them. Their mother had brought him a
good fortune. With that fortune, he always said, they must be
content: He would not, for their sakes, be guilty of the crime of
raising an estate out of revenues sacred to piety and charity.
Such merits as these will, in the judgment of wise and candid
men, appear fully to atone for every offence which can be justly
imputed to him.81

When he took his seat in the House of Lords, he found that
assembly busied in ecclesiastical legislation. A statesman who
was well known to be devoted to the Church had undertaken to
plead the cause of the Dissenters. No subject in the realm
occupied so important and commanding a position with reference to
religious parties as Nottingham. To the influence derived from
rank, from wealth, and from office, he added the higher influence
which belongs to knowledge, to eloquence, and to integrity. The
orthodoxy of his creed, the regularity of his devotions, and the
purity of his morals gave a peculiar weight to his opinions on
questions in which the interests of Christianity were concerned.
Of all the ministers of the new Sovereigns, he had the largest
share of the confidence of the clergy. Shrewsbury was certainly a
Whig, and probably a freethinker: he had lost one religion; and
it did not very clearly appear that he had found another. Halifax
had been during many years accused of scepticism, deism, atheism.