Original in his political conduct, the Earl was no less unusual in personal character. He was one of those who, as Plato says, are ‘naturally good,’ naturally examples of righteousness in a naughty world. Nature made him temperate, contented, kind, charitable, brave, and humorous—one who, as Montaigne advises, never ‘made a marvel of his own fortunes.’ His virtue, as far as can be learned, owed nothing to religion. He was ‘born to be so,’ as another man is born to be a poet. He had a native genius for excellence. He was ruined without rancour, and all the buffets of unhappy fortune, all the political and social vicissitudes of nearly a century, could not cloud his content, or diminish his pleasure in life and the sun. He was true to his exiled Princes, till they, or one of them at least, ceased to be true to themselves. He was perhaps the only friend whom Rousseau could not drag into a quarrel or estrange, and the only companion whom Frederick the Great loved so well that he never made experiments on him in the art of tyrannical tormenting. Familiar, rather than respectful, with Voltaire, the Earl, who remembered Swift in his prime, was fond of gossiping with Hume and of bantering d’Alembert. Kind and charitable to all men, he was especially considerate and indulgent to the young, from the little exiled Duke of York to the soured Elcho, and the still unsuspected Glengarry. One exception alone did the Earl make (unless we believe Rousseau): he could not endure, and would not be reconciled to, Prince Charles. If in this he may seem severe, no other offence is laid to his charge, though modern opinion may condemn his cool acquiescence in desperate plots which he probably never expected to be carried into action. Otherwise the Earl presents the ideal of a good and wise man of the world, saved from all excess, and all disappointment, by the gifts of humour and good-humour. When we add that ‘the violet of a legend,’ of unfortunate but life-long love, blows on the grave of the good Earl, it will be plain that, though not a hero, like his brother, Marshal Keith, he was a character of no common distinction and charm. His life, too, is almost an epitome of the Jacobite struggle from 1715 to 1757. The Earl was ever behind the scenes.