The tongue of the new First Lord of the Treasury was not sufficiently ready, nor was his temper sufficiently callous for his post.

He had neither adroitness to parry, nor fortitude to endure, the gibes and reproaches to which, in his new character of courtier and placeman, he was exposed.

There was also something to be done which he was too scrupulous to do; something which had never been done by Wolsey or Burleigh; something which has never been done by any English statesman of our generation; but which, from the time of Charles the Second to the time of George the Third, was one of the most important parts of the business of a minister.
The history of the rise, progress, and decline of parliamentary corruption in England still remains to be written.

No subject has called forth a greater quantity of eloquent vituperation and stinging sarcasm.
Three generations of serious and of sportive writers wept and laughed over the venality of the senate.

That venality was denounced on the hustings, anathematized from the pulpit, and burlesqued on the stage; was attacked by Pope in brilliant verse, and by Bolingbroke in stately prose, by Swift with savage hatred, and by Gay with festive malice.