8

nlSTOKT OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XXI.

1S!)5.

Halifax. The truth is that the memory of Halifax is entitled inan especial manner to the protection of history. For whatdistinguishes him from all other English statesmen is this, that,through a long public life, and through frequent and violentrevolutions of public feeling, he almost invariably took that viewof the great questions of his time which history has finallyadopted. He was called inconstant, because the relative posi-tion in which he stood to the contending factions wasperpetuallyvarying. As well might the pole star be called inconstant be-cause it is sometimes to the east and sometimes to the west ofthe pointers. To have defended the ancient and legal constitu-tion of the realm against a seditious populace atone conjunctureand against a tyrannical government at another; to have beenthe foremost defender of order in the turbulent Parliament of 1680and the foremost defender of liberty in the servile Parliament of1685 ; to have been just and merciful to Homan Catholics in thedays of the Popish plot and to Exclusionists in the days of tlioRye House Plot; to have done all in his power to save both thehead of Stafford and the head of Russell; this was a coursewhich contemporaries, heated by passion and deluded by namesand badges, might not unnaturally call fickle, but whichdeserves a very different name from the late justice of posterity.

There is one and only one deep stain on the memory of thiseminent man. It is melancholy to think that he, who had actedso great a part in the Convention, could have afterwards stoopedto hold communication with Saint Germains. The fact cannotbe disputed: yet for him there are excuses which cannot bepleaded for others who were guilty of the same crime. He didnot, like Marlborough, Russell, Godolphin and Shrewsbury,betray a master by whom he was trusted, and with whose benefitshe was loaded. It was by the ingratitude and malice of theWhigs that he was driven to take shelter for a moment amongthe Jacobites. It may be added that he soon repented of the