To the ladies whom he most liked, he would lend some learned work on the Revelation, crammed with marginal notes in his own hand, or Dr.Lardner's "Observations upon the Jewish Errors with respect to the Conversion of Mary Magdalene." The more pious among them had high hopes that these studies would lead him into the right way; but of this there were no symptoms in his after-dinner conversations.
The paradox of his political career was no less curious.

By temperament an aristocrat, by conviction a conservative, he came to power as the leader of the popular party, the party of change.

He had profoundly disliked the Reform Bill, which he had only accepted at last as a necessary evil; and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very existence, of the very meaning, of his government.

He was far too sceptical to believe in progress of any kind.

Things were best as they were or rather, they were least bad.