CHAP, si.] GOLDSMITH IN PRACTICE AND BURKE IN OFFICE.
was wholly deficient, by an inestimable art of attracting and 17115.
securing Mends; whose character was unstained by any of JEt~37.
the intrigues of the past ten years ; and who had selected for
his associates men like himself, less noted for their brilliant
talents than for their excellent sense and spotless honour.
The manly independence as well as great landed influence of
the old Yorkshire family of Savile, was worthily represented
in their ranks by the present member for the county, Sir
George: and with him, were associated the shrewd clear
honesty and financial ability of Dowdeswell, a country gentle-
man of Worcestershire; and the many rare virtues of the
Duke of Devonshire's youngest uncle, Lord John Cavendish,
who, not more remarkable for his fair little clownish person
than for his princely soul, carried out in politics the prin-
ciples of private honour with what Walpole sneeringly calls
" the tyranny of a moral philosopher."* "With the estremer
opinions of Lord Temple, these men had little in common.
Though staunch against general warrants and invasions of
liberties and franchises, they were as far from being Wilkite
as the reckless demagogue himself; and they had obtained
the general repute of a kind of middle constitutional party.
Little compatible was this with present popularity, Burke well
knew; but he saw beyond the ignorant present. To the last
he hoped that Pitt might be moved; and in the May of this
year so expressed himself to his friend Mood, in a letter
which is curious evidence of his possession of the politi-
cal secrets of the dayrf but, though believing that with-
out the splendid talents and boundless popularity of the
* Memoirs of George III. ii. 25. George Selwyn called Mm, says Walpole, as
well for his fair little person, as for the quaintness with which he untreasured, as
by rote, the stores of his memory, "the learned canary bird." Gray calls him
"the best of all Johns." See Correspondence of Gray and Mason, 78. Mason
was his tutor at Cambridge. t Burke's Correspondence,'!. 80.