Lord Somers, bland and courteous, never offending in word or look, humble, as if unconscious of his great abilities, and yielding to others far inferior to himself in judgment and knowledge, was not enslaved by the talents, the beauty, and the power of Lady Marlborough; and, even at this time, he was secretly disgusted by her arrogance and love of domination. He submitted to the will of the Queen, as manifested in his dismissal, with a lofty calmness, which gave that act of her Majesty the semblance of an indignity, disgraceful to her judgment, rather than of a mortification imposed upon Somers. Nor did the slights of worldly friends, and the taunting opposition of foes, weaken his resistance to those measures of which he disapproved, or abate his ardour to promote schemes of which he augured well, whether proposed by a party who had deserted him, or by adversaries who rejoiced in his adversity. Repressing the impulses of a temper naturally impetuous, he permitted the extensive information which he possessed concerning all the political interests of Europe, his profound knowledge as a lawyer, and his manly eloquence, still to be useful in the service of his country; and his great character stood unsullied by petulance; a mark for envy, which could not sap its noble foundations, although it might by calumny injure and deface its exterior. But whilst Lord Somers thus encountered unmerited contumely, his companion in the loss of office, Lord Halifax, was not so resigned to the loss of an importance on which his vanity rendered him dependent for comfort. “Mouse Montague,”[388] as Lady Marlborough, writing after their estrangement, contemptuously calls Lord Halifax, was descended from the house of Manchester, but, being a younger brother, his patrimony amounted to fifty pounds a year only. With this, as the Duchess remarks, he “could make no great figure.”[389] His name was given him for a political work, which first brought him into notice; for it was the fashion of the day to attach some appellation to the great men who most attracted public attention. Even the pulpit was sometimes the origin of such appropriations; and the great Godolphin is said to have been mortified and enraged by the addition of “Volpone” to his other designations, affixed to him by a sermon preached by Dr. Sacheverel.