Excerpt from Chandos: A Novel The multitude had gathered thickly, swollen by every passer-by who, drawn into the vortex, had hung on the outskirts of the concourse, and stopped in turn to pause and stare, and hear the gossip of St. Stephen's. There had been, as it was known, a powerful and heated debate, a political crisis of decisive eminence, - of some peril, moreover, to the country, from a rash war policy which had been urged upon the existing ministry, which must, it had been feared, have resigned to escape stooping to measures forced on it by the opposition; the false position had been avoided by the genius of one man alone; the government had stood firm, and had vanquished its foes, through the mighty ability of its chief statesman, - one who, more fortunate than Pitt in the brilliant success of his measures at home and abroad, was often called, like Pitt, the Great Commoner. Yet it was a title, perhaps, that scarcely suited him; for he was patrician to the core, - patrician in pride, in name, in blood, and in caste, though he dis dained all coronets. You could not have lowered him; also, you could not have ennobled him. He was simply and intrinsically a great man. At the same time, he was the haughtiest of aristocrats, - too haughty, by all the Bour bon and Plantagenet blood of his line, ever to stoop to the patent of a present earldom or a marquisate of the new creation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.