On the triumph of the Whigs he became one of the leading members of the Government; and when Lord Grey retired from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant place.

Nor was it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been kind to him.
Bound to succeed, and to succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine a nature that his success became him.

His mind, at once supple and copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not merely to work, but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of strength.

In society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion, a charming man.

If one looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation and his manner--his free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and loungings, his innumerable oaths--were something more than an amusing ornament, were the outward manifestation of an individuality that was fundamental.
The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge: it was dubious, complex, perhaps self--contradictory.