Whatever William may have been, Thomas was impracticable, and no one seems to have succeeded in working amicably with him. He was a man of extremes. 'All his passions,' writes his son, 'were violent by nature, particularly pride and ambition, which were painted in his figure, one of the most imposing I ever saw. He was not without good qualities; but, to speak fairly, they were greatly over-balanced by the contrary tendencies.' He was said not to have been naturally vicious, but early embarrassments, perpetual family litigations, a sense of injury, the flattery of dependents, and a train of mortifications and disappointments 'had formed in him such habits of rapacity, injustice and violence that he seemed at last to have lost even the sense of right and wrong.' He had, evidently, personal attractions, marred by an imperious demeanour, was strong and graceful, addicted to hunting and manly sports, fond of music and dancing. His overbearing manner, which arose from an undisguised contempt of his equals, gave him some ascendancy in Cornwall, where, however, though endured, he was secretly detested. So haughty and violent a character might, one supposes, have been mellowed and redeemed by a fortunate marriage, and Thomas seems to have secured an angel as his wife. At the opera one night he saw a daughter of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, was struck by her extraordinary beauty, proposed in his headlong manner next day, and was accepted. Her son laments her want of any fortune to remedy her husband's eternal embarrassments, but she seems to have lacked nothing else. Besides her loveliness, 'as a faithful wife, a tender mother, a kind friend, an indulgent mistress, she was a pattern to her sex.'[18] But her very virtues turned her husband against her. Her meek gentleness, humility, and charity, the extreme piety, carried almost to bigotry, in which she had been reared, were reproachful contrasts to his opposite qualities. She was the object of ridicule to the wit and malice of others, possibly, we should guess, of her sisters-in-law; and, finally, every kind sentiment, even of common humanity, towards her, was extinguished in the husband who had loved her so passionately. Thomas seems, from the moment of succession until death, to have been a prey to pecuniary embarrassment. He started with an exaggerated view of his resources, and launched into extravagance; arrogance and ambition made him more profuse; a taste for borough management, strong in him, was probably more expensive than any other possible form of gambling; so all his life was soured by the struggle between pride and debt, and by consequent mortification. This seems to be the secret of his wasted and unhappy existence.