180

HISTORY OP ENGLAND,

CHAP.

II.

He must seize tlie exact moment for deserting a falling cause.Having gone all lengths with a faction while it was uppermost,he must suddenly extricate himself from it when its difficultiesbegin, must assail it, must persecute it, must enter on a newcareer of power and prosperity in company with new asso-ciates. His situation naturally developes in him to the high-est degree a peculiar class of abilities and a peculiar class ofvices. He becomes quick of observation and fertile of re-source. He catches without eifort the tone of any sect orparty with which he chances to mingle. He discerns the signsof the times with a sagacity which to the multitude appearsmiraculous, with a sagacity resembling that with which aveteran police officer pursues the faintest indications of crime,or with which a Mohawk warrior follows a track through thewoods. But we shall seldom find in a statesman so trained,integrity, constancy, any of the virtues of the noble family ofTruth. He has no faith in any doctrine, no zeal for anycause. He has seen so many old institutions swept away,that he has no reverence for prescription. He has seen somany new institutions from which much had been expectedproduce mere disappointment, that he has no hope of im-provement. He sneers alike at those who are anxious topreserve and at those who are eager to reform. There isnothing in the state Which he could not, without a scrupleor a blush, join in defending or in destroying. Fidelity toopinions and to friends seems to him mere dulness and wrong-headedness. Politics he regards, not as a science of whichthe object is the happiness of mankind, but as an excitinggame of mixed chance and skill, at which a dexterous andlucky player may win an estate, a coronet, perhaps a crown,and at which one rash move may lead to the loss of fortuneand of life. Ambition, which, in good times, and in goodminds, is half a virtue, now, disjoined from every elevatedand philanthropic sentiment, becomes a selfish cupidity scarce-