[Footnote 79: [The passage occurs in the 'Annals of Tacitus,' book iii. ch. 30. Sallustius Crispus was a descendant of the sister of Caius Sallustius, the historian who allowed him to assume the name of Sallust. Horace addressed to him the second Ode of the second book of Odes.]] [Sidenote: MELBOURNE'S CONVERSATIONS AND OPINIONS.] At the time Melbourne left office he was only an occasional guest at Court, but the Queen continued to correspond with him constantly, and gave him frequent proofs that her regard for him was undiminished. He took very little part in politics after 1841, and it was not long before his health began to give way. He had been so completely absorbed by the Court, that for many years he had been almost lost to society; but as soon as he was out of office, he resumed his old habits, and was continually to be found at Holland House, at Lady Palmerston's, and with a few other intimate friends. There he loved to lounge and sprawl at his ease, pouring out a rough but original stream of talk, shrewd, playful, and instructive. His distinctive qualities were strong sound sense, and an innate taste for what was great and good, either in action or sentiment. His mind kindled, his eye brightened, and his tongue grew eloquent when noble examples or sublime conceptions presented themselves before him. He would not have passed 'unmoved by any scene that was consecrated by virtue, by valour, or by wisdom.' But while he pursued truth, as a philosopher, his love of paradox made him often appear a strange mass of contradiction and inconsistency. A sensualist and a Sybarite, without much refinement or delicacy, a keen observer of the follies and vices of mankind, taking the world as he found it, and content to extract as much pleasure and diversion as he could from it, he at one time would edify and astonish his hearers with the most exalted sentiments, and at another would terrify and shock them by indications of the lowest morality and worldly feelings, and by thoughts and opinions fraught with the most cold-hearted mocking and sarcasm. His mind seems all his life long, and on almost every subject, to have been vigorous and stirring, but unsettled and unsatisfied. It certainly was so on the two great questions of religion and politics, and he had no profound convictions, no certain assurance about either. He studied divinity eagerly and constantly, and was no contemptible theologian; but he never succeeded in arriving at any fixed belief, or in anchoring himself on any system of religious faith. It was the same thing in politics. All the Liberal and Constitutional theories which he had ever entertained had been long ago more than realised, and he was filled with alarm at the prospect of their further extension. All his notions were aristocratic, and he had not a particle of sympathy for what was called progressive reform. He was a vehement supporter of the Corn Laws, abused