Melbourne

'I agree with Lord David [Cecil] that Melbourne as a friend or relative must have been one of the most delightful, wise and entertaining of men, but in public life I believe him also to have been ambitious, cynical and almost wholly without political principle. He was, in short, much less of a carefree amateur, much more of a politician.' Philip Ziegler, from his Preface First published in 1976, Philip Ziegler's Melbourne drew on hitherto unused material and made an unprecedently searching asses