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In 1834 Melbourne became Britain's vaguest, strangest Prime Minister. Years later, even his old friends in the Cabinet were shocked when, after at last reaching agreement on the price of bread, they heard their Premier calling after them down the stairs: "Stop a bit! What did we decide? Is it to lower the price . . . or isn't it? It doesn't matter which, but we must all say the same thing."
How to Lick Bad Habits. In 1837 the young Queen Victoria ascended the throne, and the aging Whig skeptic was handed the unusual task of explaining the basic principles of faith and politics to an innocent girl. The young Queen all but fell in love with him. "Dear Lord M" (as the Queen called him in her diary) could explain anything, from the martial conquest of Canada to the marital conduct of Henry VIII ("Those women bothered him so," he told her). He was always so reassuring about everything. "If you have a bad habit," he said, "the best way to get out of it is to take your fill of it." Complicated matters, such as the monarchical history of Scotland, he summed up with fine brevity ("There are too many Jameses and all murdered. The Scottish are a dreadful people'').
For a few brief years, the last of the Regency Whigs held the hand of the first of the Victorian moralists. But the heyday of the Whig aristocracy was over. When the young Queen married her stern, respectable Prince Consort, Melbourne found himself in the doghouse. For a while Lord M fought the changing order, and his aged voice could be heard crying: "This damned morality will ruin everything!" But at last he retired to the country. "The fire is out," he told his friends bluntly. "The fire is out."