His mind was much less turned to particular observations, and much more to general speculations, than that of Shaftesbury.  Shaftesbury knew the King, the Council, the Parliament, the City, better than Halifax; but Halifax would have written a far better treatise on political science than Shaftesbury.  Shaftesbury shone more in consultation, and Halifax in controversy:  Shaftesbury was more fertile in expedients, and Halifax in arguments.  Nothing that remains from the pen of Shaftesbury will bear a comparison with the political tracts of Halifax.  Indeed, very little of the prose of that age is so well worth reading as the Character of a Trimmer and the Anatomy of an Equvivalent.  What particularly strikes us in those works is the writer’s passion for generalisation.  He was treating of the most exciting subjects in the most agitated times he was himself placed in the very thick of the civil conflict; yet there is no acrimony, nothing inflammatory, nothing personal.  He preserves an air of cold superiority, a certain philosophical serenity, which is perfectly marvellous.  He treats every question as an abstract question, begins with the widest propositions, argues those propositions on general grounds, and often, when he has brought out his theorem, leaves the reader to make the application, without adding an allusion to particular men, or to passing events.  This speculative turn of mind rendered him a bad adviser in cases which required celerity.  He brought forward, with wonderful readiness and copiousness, arguments, replies to those arguments, rejoinders to those replies, general maxims of policy, and analogous cases from history.  But Shaftesbury was the man for a prompt decision.  Of the parliamentary eloquence of these celebrated rivals, we can judge only by report; and, so judging, we should be inclined to think that, though Shaftesbury was a distinguished speaker, the superiority belonged to Halifax.  Indeed the readiness of Halifax in debate, the extent of his knowledge, the ingenuity of his reasoning, the liveliness of his expression, and the silver clearness and sweetness of his voice, seems to have made the strongest impression on his contemporaries.  By Dryden he is described as

“of piercing wit and pregnant thought, Endued by nature and by learning taught To move assemblies.”

His oratory is utterly and irretrievably lost to us, like that of Somers, of Bolingbroke, of Charles Townshend, of many others who were accustomed to rise amid the breathless expectation of senates, and to sit down amidst reiterated bursts of applause.  But old men who lived to admire the eloquence of Pulteney in its meridian, and that of Pitt in its splendid dawn, still murmured that they had heard nothing like the great speeches of Lord Halifax on the Exclusion Bill.  The power of Shaftesbury over large masses was unrivalled.  Halifax was disqualified by his whole character, moral and intellectual, for the part of a demagogue.  It was in small circles, and, above all, in the House of Lords, that his ascendency was felt.