In the intellectual qualities of a statesman Montague was probably not inferior to Pitt.

But the magnanimity, the dauntless courage, the contempt for riches and for baubles, to which, more than to any intellectual quality, Pitt owed his long ascendency, were wanting to Montague.
The faults of Montague were great; but his punishment was cruel.

It was indeed a punishment which must have been more bitter than the bitterness of death to a man whose vanity was exquisitely sensitive, and who had been spoiled by early and rapid success and by constant prosperity.
Before the new Parliament had been a month sitting it was plain that his empire was at an end.

He spoke with the old eloquence; but his speeches no longer called forth the old response.

Whatever he proposed was maliciously scrutinised.