As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth century whose lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age.
He was an autumn rose.

With all his gracious amenity, his humour, his happy-go-lucky ways, a deep disquietude possessed him.

A sentimental cynic, a sceptical believer, he was restless and melancholy at heart.
Above all, he could never harden himself; those sensitive petals shivered in every wind.

Whatever else he might be, one thing was certain: Lord Melbourne was always human, supremely human--too human, perhaps.
And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new, extraordinary turn.

He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the intimate adviser and the daily companion of a young girl who had stepped all at once from a nursery to a throne.