It is notorious that he committed two great errors in judgement, both of which were attended with disastrous consequences, and I believe that in both cases his discretion was misled by his feelings, and that it was his care for her ease and happiness which betrayed him into these fatal mistakes. The first was the Flora Hastings affair, the scandal of which he might certainly have prevented; the other was the Bedchamber quarrel, when her reluctance to part with him, and his tenderness for her, overruled his better judgement, and made him adopt a course he must have known to be both impossible and wrong. In these affairs (especially the first), Melbourne must have suffered torments, for his tender solicitude for the Queen, and the deep sense of his own responsibility, were sure to weigh heavily upon him. His influence and authority at Court were not diminished, nor his position there altered by her marriage; but the Prince, though always living on very friendly terms with him, was secretly rejoiced when the political power of this great favourite was brought to a close; for, so long as Melbourne was there, he undoubtedly played but an obscure and secondary part. When the inevitable change of Government at last took place, the parting between the Queen and her Minister was very sorrowful to both of them, and it was then that he gave his last and generous proof of his anxiety for her happiness in sending me with his advice to Peel. It would be rendering imperfect justice to Melbourne's character to look upon him rather as a courtier than as a statesman, and to fancy that he made his political principles subordinate to his personal predilections. He was deeply attached to the Queen, but he had all the patriotism of an English gentleman, and was jealous of the honour and proud of the greatness of his country. He held office with a profound sense of its responsibilities; there never was a Minister more conscientious in the distribution of patronage, more especially of his ecclesiastical patronage. He was perfectly disinterested, without nepotism, and without vanity; he sought no emoluments for his connexions, and steadily declined all honours for himself. The Queen often pressed him to accept the Garter, but he never would consent, and it was remarked that the Prime Minister of England was conspicuous at Court for being alone undecorated amidst the stars and ribands which glittered around him. He has been not inappropriately compared to Sallustius Crispus, as described by Tacitus: 'Quamquam prompto ad capessendos honores aditu, sine dignitate senatori‚ multos triumphalium consulariumque potenti‚ anteiit; diversus a veterum instituto per cultum et munditias; copi‚que et affluenti‚ luxu propior. Suberat tamen vigor animi ingentibus negotiis par, eo acrior, quo somnum et inertiam magis ostentabat. Igitur incolumi MÊcenate proximus; mox prÊcipuus cui secreta Imperatorum maxime inniterentur.'[79]