his purpose. A hearty kind of frankness, which sometimes seemed impudence, made people think that he let them into his secrets, whilst the impoliteness of his manners seemed to attest his sincerity. When he found any body proof against pecuniary temptations; which, alas! was but seldom, he had recourse to a still worse art; for he laughed at and ridiculed all notions of public virtue, and the love of one's country, calling them, "The chimerical "school-boy flights of classical learning" declaring himself, at the same time, "No "saint, no Spartan, no reformer." He would frequently ask young fellows, at their first appearance in the world, while their honest hearts were yet untainted, "Well, are you to be an old Roman? a patriot? you will soon come off of that, "and grow wiser." And thus he was more dangerous to the morals than to the liberties of his country, to which I am persuaded he meant no ill in his heart. He was the easy and profuse dupe of women, and in some instances indecently SO. He was excessively open to flattery, even of the grossest kind; and from the coarsest bunglers of that vile profession; which engaged him to pass most of his leisure and jovial hours with people whose blasted characters reflected upon his own. He was loved by many, but respected by none; his familiar and illiberal mirth and raillery leaving him no dignity. He was not vindictive, but, on the contrary, very placable to those who had injured him the most. His good-humour, good-nature, and beneficence, in the several relations of father, husband, master, and friend, gained him the warmest affections of all within that circle. His name will not be recorded in history among the "best men," or the "best mi"nisters;" but much less ought it to be ranked among the worst. Chesterfield. § 134. Character of Lord GRANVILLE. Lord Granville had great parts, and a most uncommon share of learning for a man of quality. lie was one of the best speakers in the house of lords both in the declamatory and the argumentative way. He had a wonderful quickness and precision in seizing the stress of a question, which no art, no sophistry, could disguise in him. In business he was bold, enter prising, and overbearing. He had been bred up in high monarchical, that is, ty rannical principles of government, which his ardent and imperious temper made him think were the only rational and practi cable ones. He would have been a great first minister in France, little inferior, perhaps, to Richelieu: in this government, which is yet free, he would have been a dangerous one, little less so, perhaps, than Lord Strafford. He was nei ther ill-natured, nor vindictive, and had a great contempt for money; his ideas were all above it. In social life he was so agreeable, good-humoured, and instructive companion; a great but entertaining talker. He degraded himself by the vice of drinking; which, together with a great stock of Greek and Latin, he brought away with him from Oxford, and retained and practised ever afterwards. By his own industry, he had made himself master of all the modern languages, and had acquired a great knowledge of the law. His political knowledge of the in terest of princes and of commerce was extensive, and his notions were just and great. His character may be summed up, in nice precision, quick decision, and unbounded presumption. Chesterfield. § 135. Character of Mr. PELHAM. Mr. Pelham had good sense, without either shining parts or any degree of lite rature. He had by no means an elevated or enterprising genius, but had a more manly and steady resolution than his brother the Duke of Newcastle. He had a gentleman-like frankness in his behaviour, and as great point of honour as a minister can have, especially a minister at the head of the treasury, where numberless sturdy and unsatiable beggars of condi tion apply, who cannot all be gratified, nor all with safety be refused. He was a very inelegant speaker in par liament, but spoke with a certain candour and openness that made him be well heard, and generally believed. He wished well to the public, and ma naged the finances with great care and personal purity. He was par negot so unaffectedly the honest dictates of his heart, that truth and virtue, which never want, and seldom wear, ornaments, seemed only to borrow his voice. This gave such an astonishing weight to all he said, that he more than once carried an unwilling majority after him. Such is the authority of unsuspected virtue, that it will sometimes shame vice into decency atleast. He was not only offered, but pressed to accept, the post of secretary of state; but § 136. Character of RICHARD Earl of he constantly refused it. I once tried to SCARBOROUGH. In drawing the character of Lord Scarborough, I will be strictly upon my guard against the partiality of that intimate and unreserved friendship, in which we lived for more than twenty years; to which friendship, as well as to the public notoriety of it, I owe much more than my pride will let my gratitude own. If this may be suspected to have biassed my judgment, it must, at the same time, be allowed to have informed it; for the most secret move ments of his whole soul were, without disguise, communicated me only. However, will rather lower than heighten the colouring; I will mark the shades, and draw a credible rather than an exact likeness. He had a very good person, rather above the middle size; a handsome face, and, when he was cheerful, the most engaging countenance imaginable; when grave, which he was oftenest, the most respectable one. He had in the highest degree the air, manners, and address of a man of quality; politeness with ease, and dignity without pride. Bred in camps and courts, it cannot be supposed that he was untainted with the fashionable vices of these warm climates; but (if I may be allowed the expression) he dignified them, instead of their degrading him into any mean or indecent action. lie had a good degree of classical, and a great one of modern, know. ledge; with a just, and, at the same time, a delicate taste. In his common expences he was liberal within bounds; but in his charities, and bounties he had none. I have known them put him to some present inconveni ences. He was a strong, but not an eloquent or florid speaker in parliament. He spoke persuade him to accept it; but he told me, that both the natural warmth and melancholy of his temper made him unfit for it; and that moreover he knew very well that, in those ministerial employments, the course of business made it necessary to do many hard things, and some unjust ones, which could only be authorised by the jesuitical casuistry of the direction of the intention: a doctrine which he said he could not possibly adopt. Whether he was the first that ever made that objection, I cannot affirm; but I suspect that he will be the last. He was a true constitutional, and yet practical patriot; a sincere lover, and a zealous assertor of the natural, the civil, and the religious rights of his country: but he would not quarrel with the crown, for some slight stretches of the preroga tive; nor with the people, for some unwary ebullitions of liberty; nor with any one for a difference of opinion in speculative points. He considered the constitution in the aggregate, and only watched that no one part of it should preponderate too much. His moral character was so pure, that if one may say of that imperfect creature man, what a celebrated historian says of Scipio, nil non laudandum aut dixit, aut fecit, aut sensit; I sincerely think (I had almost said I know), one might say it with great truth of him, one single instance excepted, which shall be mentioned, He joined to the noblest and strictest principles of honour and generosity, the tenderest sentiments of benevolence and compassion; and, as he was naturally warm, he could not even hear of an injustice or a baseness, without a sudden indignation: nor of the misfortunes or miseries of a fellow creature, without melting into softness, and endeavour. ing to relieve them. This part of his cha racter racter was so universally known, that our best and most satirical English poet says, When I confess there is who feels for fame, name? § 137. Character of Lord HARDWICKE. Lord Hardwicke was, perhaps, the And melts to goodness, need I Scarborough greatest magistrate that this country ever had. He presided in the court of Chancery above twenty years, and in all that time none of his decrees were reversed, nor the justness of them ever questioned. Though avarice was his ruling passion, he was never in the least suspected of any kind of corruption: a rare and meritorious instance of virtue and self-denia!, under the influence of such a craving, iasatiable, and increasing passion. He had not the least pride of birth and rank, that common narrow notion of little minds, that wretched mistaken succeda neum of merit; but he was jealous to anxiety of his character, as all men are who deserve a good one. And such was his diffidence upon that subject, that he never could be persuaded that mankind really thought of him as they did; for surely never man had a higher reputation, and never man enjoyed a more universal esteem. Even knaves respected him; and fools thought they loved him. If he had any enemies (for I protest I never knew one), they could be only such as were weary of always hearing of Aristides the Just. He was too subject to sudden gusts of passion, but they never hurried him into any illiberal or indecent expression or action; so invincibly habitual to him were good-nature and good-manners. But if ever any word happened to fall from him in warmth, which upon subsequent reflection he himself thought too strong, he was never easy till he had made more than a sufficient atonement for it. morose or sour. He had a most unfortunate, I will call it a most fatal kind of melancholy in his nature, which often made him both absent and silent in company, but never At other times he was a chearful and agreeable companion; but, conscious that he was not always so, he avoided company too much, and was too often alone, giving way to a train of gloomy reflections. His constitution, which was never robust, broke rapidly at the latter end of his life. He had two severe strokes of apoplexy or palsy, which considerably affected his body and his mind. I desire that this may not be looked upon as a full and finished character, writ for the sake of writing it; but as my solemn deposit of the truth to the best of my knowledge. I owed this small deposit of justice, such as it is, to the memory of the best man I ever knew, and of the dearest friend I ever had. Chesterfield. ile had great and clear parts; understood, loved, and cultivated the belles lettres. He was an agrecable, eloquent speaker in parliament, but not without some little tincture of the pleader. Men are apt to mistake, or at least to seem to mistake, their own talents, in hopes, perhaps, of misleading others to allow them that which they are conscious they do not possess. Thus Lord Hardwicke valued himself more upon being a great minister of state, which he certainly was not, than upon being a great magistrate, which he certainly was. All his notions were clear, but none of them great. Good order and domest details were his proper department. The great and shining parts of government, though not above his parts to conceive, were above his timidity to undertake, By great and lucrative employmen's, during the course of thirty years, and by still greater parsimony, he acquired an immense fortune, and established his numerous family in advantageous posts and profitable alliances. Though he had been solicitor and attorney-general, he was by no means what is called a prerogative lawyer. He loved the constitution, and maintained the just prerogative of the crown, but without stretching it to the oppression of the people. He was naturally humane, modetak, and decent; and when, by his former employments, he was obliged to prose cute state-criminals, he discharged that duty in a very different manner from most of his predecessors, who were too justly called the "blood-hounds of the crown." He was a chearful and instructive com panica, The Duke of Newcastle will be so often mentioned in the history of these times, and with so strong a bias either for or against him, that I resolved for the sake of truth, to draw his character with my usual impartiality for as he had been a minister for above forty years together, and in the last ten years of that period first minister, he had full time to oblige one half of the nation, and to offend the other. We were cotemporaries, near relations, and familiar acquaintances; sometimes well, and sometimes ill together, according to the several variations of political affairs, which know no relations, friends, or acquaintances. The public opinion put him below his level: for though he had no superior parts, or eminent talents, he had a most indefatigable industry, a perseverance, a court craft, a servile compliance with the will of his sovereign for the time being; which qualities, with only a common share of common sense, will carry a man sooner and more safely through the dark labyrinths of a court, than the most shining parts would do without those meaner talents. He was good-natured to a degree of weakness, even to tears, upon the slightest occasions. Exceedingly timorous, both personally and politically, dreading the least innovation, and keeping with a necessarily follows, that he could have no great ideas, nor elevation of mind. His ruling, or rather his only, passion was, the agitation, the bustle, and the hurry of business, to which he had been accustomed above forty years; but he was as dilatory in dispatching it, as he was eager to engage in it. He was always in a hurry, never walked, but always run, insomuch that I have sometimes told him, that by his fleetness one should rather take him for the courier than the author of the letters. He was as jealous of his power as an impotent lover of his mistress, without activity of mind enough to enjoy or exert it, but could not bear a share even in the appearances of it. His levees were his pleasure, and his triumph; he loved to have them crowded, and consequently they were so there he made people of business wait two or three hours in the anti-chamber, while he trifled away that time with some insignificant favourites in his closet. When at last he came into his levee-room, he accosted, hugged, embraced, and promised every body, with a seeming cordiality, but at the same time with an illiberal and degrading familiarity. He was exceedingly disinterested: very profuse of his own fortune, and abhorring all those means, too often used by persons in his station, either to gratify their avarice, or to supply their prodigality; for he retired from business in the year 1762, above four hundred thousand pounds poorer than when he first engaged in it. Upon the whole, he was a compound of most human weaknesses, but untainted with any vice or crime. Chesterfield. scrupulous timidity, in the beaten track $139. Character of the Duke of BED of business, as having the safest bottom. I will mention one instance of this disposition, which, I think, will set it in the strongest light. When I brought the bill into the house of lords, for correcting and amending the calendar, I gave him previous notice of my intentions: he was alarmed at so bold an undertaking, and conjured me not to stir matters that had been long quiet; adding, that he did not love new-fangled things. I did not, however, yield to the cogency of these arguments, but brought in the bill, and it passed unanimously. From such weaknesses it FORD. The Duke of Bedford was more considerable for his rank and immense fortune, than for either his parts or his vir tues. He had rather more than a common share of common sense, but with a head so wrong-turned, and so invincibly obstinate, that the share of parts which he had was of little use to him, and very troublesome to others. He was passionate, though obstinate: and, though both, was always governed by some low dependants; who had art enough to make him believe that he governed them. His manners and address were exceedingly loeral; he had neither the talent nor the desire of pleasing. In speaking in the house, he had an inelegant flow of words, but not without some reasoning, matter, and method. He had no amiable qualities: but he had no vicious nor criminal ones he was much below shining, but above contempt in any character. In short, he was a Duke of a respectable family, and with a very great estate. § 140. Another Character. and sale of a borough. If it should be the will of Providence to afflict him with a domestic misfortune, he would submit to the stroke with feeling, but not without dignity; and not look for, or find, an im mediate consolation for the loss of an only son in consultations and empty bargains for a place at court, nor in the misery of ballotting at the India-house.. The Duke's history began to be important at that auspicious period, at which he was deputed to the court of Versailles. It was an honourable office, and was executed with the same spirit with which it was accepted. Ilis patrons wanted an ambassador who would submit to make concessions :—their business required a man who had as little feeling for his own dignity as for the welfare of his country; and they found him in the first rank of the nobility. Junius, afterwards Lord Holland. The Duke of Bedford is indeed a very considerable man. The highest rank, a splendid fortune, and a name glorious till it was his, were sufficient to have supported him with meaner abilities than he § 141. Character of Mr. HENRY FOX, possessed. The use he made of these uncommon advantages might have been more honourable to himself, but could not be more instructive to mankind. The eminence of his station gave him a commanding prospect of his duty. The road which led to honour was open to his view. He could not lose it by mistake, and he had no temptation to depart from it by design. 'An independent, virtuous Duke of Bedford, would never prostitute his dignity in parliament by an indecent violence, either in oppressing or defending a minister: he would not at one moment rancorously persecute, at another basely cringe to the fa. vourite of his sovereign. Though deceived perhaps in his youth, he would not, through the course of a long life, have invariably chosen his friends from among the most profligate of mankind: his own honour would have forbidden him from mixing his private pleasures or conversation with jockeys, gamesters, blasphemers, gladiators, or buffoons. He would then have never felt, much less would he have submitted to, the humiliating necessity of engaging in the interest and intrigues of his dependants; of supplying their vices, or relieving their beggary, at the expence of his country. He would not have betrayed such ignorance, or such contempt of the constitution, as openly to avow in a court of justice the purchase Mr. Henry Fox was a younger brother of the lowest extraction. His father, Sir Stephen Fox, made a considerable fortune, somehow or other, and left him a fair younger brother's portion, which he soon spent in the common vices of youth, gaming included: this obliged him to travel for some time. When he returned, though by educa tion a Jacobite, he attached himself to Sir Robert Walpole, and was one of his ablest elves. He had no fixed principles either of religion or morality, and was too unwary in ridiculing and exposing them. He had very great abilities and indefatigable industry in business; great skill in managing, that is, in corrupting, the house of commons; and a wonderful dexterity in attaching individuals to himself. He promoted, encouraged, and practised their vices; he gratified their avarice, or supplied their profusion. He wisely and punctually performed whatever he promised, and most liberally rewarded their attachment and dependance. By these, and all other means that can be imagined, he made himself many per sonal friends and political dependants. He was a most disagreeable speaker in parliament, inelegant in his language, he sitating and ungraceful in his elocution, but |