Stephens.
His early defection to a man who, whether rightful heir or not, had that
of romance in his history which is even now sufficient to make our young
ladies 'thorough Jacobites' at heart, was easily to be excused, on the
plea of youth and high spirit. The same excuse does not explain his
rapid return to Whiggery--in which there is no romance at all--the
moment he took his seat in the Irish House of Lords. There is only one
way to explain the zeal with which he now advocated the Orange cause:
he must have been either a very designing knave, or a very unprincipled
fool. As he gained nothing by the change but a dukedom for which he did
not care, and as he cared for little else that the government could give
him, we may acquit him of any very deep motives. On the other hand, his
life and some of his letters show that, with a vast amount of bravado,
he was sufficiently a coward. When supplicated, he was always obstinate;
when neglected, always supplicant. Now it required some courage in those
days to be a Jacobite. Perhaps he cared for nothing but to astonish and
disgust everybody with the facility with which he could turn his coat,
as a hippodromist does with the ease with which he changes his costume.
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