I will dwell a little longer on his character; for it was of a very extraordinary composition. He began to make a considerable figure very early. ... He had a wonderful faculty in speaking to a popular assembly, and could mix both the facetious and the serious way of arguing very agreeably. He had a particular talent to make others trust to his judgment, and depend on it: and he brought over so many to a submission to his opinion, that I never knew any man equal to him in the art of governing parties, and of making himself the head of them. He was, as to religion, a deist at best.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury