This truth appears even

sources of great virtues. among brutes, who, we observe, never degenerate, except in cases of misalliances with their inferiors. Are not the pedigrees of horses, cocks, &c. carefully preserved, as the never-failing proofs of their swiftness and courage? I repeat it again, birth is an inestimable advantage, not to be adequately understood but by those who have it."

My friend was going on, and, to say the truth, growing dull, when I took the liberty of interrupting him, by acknowledging that the cogency of his arguments, and the self-evidence of his facts, had "entirely removed all my doubts, and convinced me of the unspeakable advantages of illustrious birth, and unfortunately I added, that my own vanity was greatly flattered by it, in consequence of my being lineally descended from the first man. Upon this my friend looked grave, and seemed rather displeased; whether from a suspicion that I was jesting, or upon an apprehension that I meant to out-descend him, I cannot determine; for he contented himself with saying, "That is not a necessary consequence neither, Mr. Fitz-Adam, since I have read somewhere or other of pre-Adamites; which opinion did not seem to me an absurd one."

Here I took my leave of him, and went home full of reflections upon the astonishing power of self-love, that can extract comfort and pleasure from such groundless, absurd, and extravagant prejudices. In all other respects my friend is neither a fool nor a madman, and can talk very rationally upon any rational subject. But such is the inconsistency both of the human mind and the human heart, that one must

not form a general judgment of either, from one glaring error, or one shining excellence.

CHARACTER OF LORD BOLINGBROKE.

Lord Bolingbroke has both a tongue and a pen to persuade; his manner of speaking in private conversation is full as elegant as his writings; whatever subject he either speaks or writes upon, he adorns it with the most splendid eloquence; not a studied or laboured eloquence, but such a flowing happiness of diction, which (from care perhaps at first) is become so habitual to him, that even his most familiar conversations, if taken down in writing, would bear the press, without the least correction either as to method or style. If his conduct, in the former part of his life, had been equal to all his natural and acquired talents, he would most justly have merited the epithet of all-accomplished. He is himself sensible of his past errors: those violent passions, which seduced him in youth, have now subsided by age; and, take him as he is now, the character of all-accomplished is more his due than any man's I ever knew in my life.

But he has been a most mortifying instance of the violence of the human passions, and of the weakness of the most exalted human reason. His virtues and his vices, his reason and his passions, did not blend themselves by a gradation of tints, but formed a shining and sudden contrast. Here the darkest, there the most splendid colours; and both rendered more striking from their proximity. Impetuosity, excess, and almost extravagancy, characterised not only his passions, but even his senses. His youth was distin

guished by all the tumult and storms of pleasure, in which he most licentiously triumphed, disdaining all decorum. His fine imagination has often been heated and exhausted with his body, in celebrating and deifying the prostitute of the night; and his convivial joys were pushed to all the extravagancy of frantic Bacchanals. Those passions were interrupted but by a stronger, Ambition. The former impaired both his constitution and his character, but the latter destroyed both his fortune and his reputation.

He has noble and generous sentiments, rather than fixed reflected principles of good-nature and friendship; but they are more violent than lasting, and suddenly and often varied to their opposite extremes, with regard even to the same persons. He receives the common attentions of civility as obligations, which he returns with interest; and resents with passion the little inadvertencies of human nature, which he repays with interest too. Even a difference of opinion upon a philosophical subject would provoke, and prove him no practical philosopher at least.

Notwithstanding the dissipation of his youth, and the tumultuous agitation of his middle age, he has an infinite fund of various and almost universal knowledge, which, from the clearest and quickest conception, and happiest memory, that ever man was blessed with, he always carries about him. It is his pocketmoney, and he never has occasion to draw upon a book for any sum. He excels more particularly in history, as his historical works plainly prove.

The

relative political and commercial interests of every country in Europe, particularly of his own, are better

known to him than perhaps to any man in it; but how steadily he has pursued the latter, in his public conduct, his enemies, of all parties and denominations, tell with joy.

He engaged young, and distinguished himself in business; and his penetration was almost intuition. I am old enough to have heard him speak in parliament. And I remember, that, though prejudiced against him by party, I felt all the force and charms of his eloquence. Like Belial, in Milton, "he made the worse appear the better cause." All the internal and external advantages and talents of an orator are undoubtedly his. Figure, voice, elocution, knowledge: and, above all, the purest and most florid diction, with the justest metaphors and happiest images, had raised him to the post of secretary at war at four-and-twenty years old; an age at which others are hardly thought fit for the smallest employ

ments.

During his long exile in France, he applied himself to study with his characteristical ardour; and there he formed and chiefly executed the plan of a great philosophical work. The common bounds of human knowledge are too narrow for his warm and aspiring imagination. He must go extra flammantia mania mundi, and explore the unknown and unknowable regions of metaphysics; which open an unbounded field for the excursions of an ardent imagination; where endless conjectures supply the defect of unattainable knowledge, and too often usurp both its name and influence.

He has had a very handsome person, with a most engaging address in his air and manners; he has all

the dignity and good-breeding which a man of quality should or can have, and which so few, in this country at least, really have.

He professes himself a deist; believing in a general Providence, but doubting of, though by no means rejecting (as is commonly supposed) the immortality of the soul, and a future state.

Upon the whole of this extraordinary man, what can we say, but, alas! poor human nature!

CEREMONIES.

All ceremonies are in themselves very silly things; but yet a man of the world should know them. They are the outworks of manners and decency, which would be too often broken in upon, if it were not for that defence, which keeps the enemy at a proper distance: it is for that reason that I always treat fools and coxcombs with great ceremony; true good-breeding not being a sufficient barrier against them. The knowledge of the world teaches one to deal with different people differently, and according as characters and situations require. The versatile ingenium is a most essential point; and a man must be broke to it while he is young.

CORRECTION OF CHILDREN.

As for my godson, who, I assure you without compliment, enjoys my next warmest wishes, you go a little too fast, and think too far before-hand. No plan can possibly be now laid down for the second seven years. His own natural turn and temper must be first discovered, and your then situation will and ought to decide his destination. But I will add one consideration with regard to these first seven years.