As a Whig Party leader in the 19th century, Viscount Melbourne's very existence was in fact rather paradoxical.
He had never presented himself like the Whig Party leaders of previous generations, as a radical reformer; in fact, he couldn't even really be counted as part of the reformist camp.
From the moment he entered politics in his twenties, to put it bluntly, Viscount Melbourne's positions simply swayed with the Whig Party's general line; to put it more nicely, he "remained loyal to the party platform for a hundred years without wavering": no matter who the Party Leader was, no matter what the Party Leader advocated, he would follow and vote accordingly.
Of course, this perhaps cannot be entirely blamed on his personality, which seemed to have seen through the vanity of the world and adopted a "let things take their course" attitude.
