it was not confined to married people), to be the means, under Providence, of clothing an immortal soul in clay.' He introduced and pursued this theme without respect to persons, and not unfrequently recommended matrimony to married people who would have lent a readier ear to a proposal of separation or divorce. In explanation of the rumours circulated from time to time in his younger days respecting his own attempts to confirm. precept by example, he said, 'that whenever his name had been coupled with that of a single lady, he had thought it his duty to give out that he had been refused.' On his regretting that he had not married, because then he should have had a nice woman to care for him, it was suggested,- How do you know she would not have cared for somebody else?'-an awkward doubt at all times.

His own version of his nearest approximation to the nuptial tie was, that, when a young man, he admired and sedulously sought the society of the most beautiful girl he then, and still, thought he had ever seen. At the end of the London season, at a ball, she said : I am going to-morrow to Worthing. Are you coming there?' He did not go. Some months afterwards, being at Ranelagh, he saw the attention of every one drawn towards a large party, in the centre of which was a lady on the arm of her husband. Stepping forward to see this wonderful beauty, he found it was his love. She merely said: You never came to Worthing.'

He latterly took great delight in hearing the Bible read, especially the sublime passages, and those of moral beauty. This kind office was frequently per

formed for him by a lady as much distinguished by her private virtues as formerly by qualities which enchanted the public. In the course of religious conversation arising out of her readings, she suggested to him the subject of the Sacrament. After due consideration, he expressed himself desirous of receiving it from his old friend, the Dean of St. Paul's. The Dean, after some conference with him, consented to his request, and accordingly administered the sacramental rite to Rogers, his sister (then, like her brother, in a state of great bodily infirmity), the lady above mentioned, her daughter, and one other person for whom he expressed very sincere affection.

In the case of most men over whom the grave had closed so recently, we should have refrained from such minuteness of personal detail, however curious or illustrative. But the veil had been removed from the private life of Rogers long before we approached the sanctuary; and we are not responsible for the profanation, if it be one. His habits, his mode of life, his predilections, his aversions, his caustic sayings, his benevolent actions, have been treated like common property as far back as the living generation can remember. They have been discussed in all circles, and have occasionally appeared (with varying degrees of accuracy) in print.

Now that monarchs have left off changing their shirts at crowded levées, we should be puzzled to name any contemporary celebrity who, whether he liked it or not, had been so much or so constantly before the public as Rogers. He knew everybody, and everybody knew Lady Becher (Miss O'Neill).

him. He spoke without reserve to the first comer, and the chance visitor was admitted to his intimacy as unwarily as the tried friend. This argued a rare degree of conscious rectitude and honourable self-reliance; and in estimating his character, in balancing the final account of his merits and demerits, too much stress cannot be laid on the searching nature of the ordeal he has undergone. Choose out the wisest, brightest, noblest of mankind, and how many of them could bear to be thus pursued into the little corners of their lives all their faults observed, set in a note-book, learned and. conned by rote'? Most assuredly, if the general scope and tendency of their conduct be no worse, they may, one and all,-to borrow the impressive language of Erskine,- walk through the shadow of death, with all their faults about them, with as much cheerfulness as in the common path of life.' But if great virtues may not atone for small frailties, or kind deeds for unkind words, they must call upon the mountains to cover them, for which of them can present, for Omniscient examination, a pure, unspotted, and faultless course?'

149

FREDERIC VON GENTZ.

[FROM THE EDINBURGH REVIEW FOR JANUARY, 1863.]

Aus dem Nachlass VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. Tagebücher von FRIEDRICH VON GENTZ. Mit einem Vor- und NachWorte von VARNHAGEN VON ENSE. Leipzig: 1861.

We invite attention to the life and writings of Gentz, for reasons widely different from those which commonly induce the analysis of a character or the review of a biography. He is not a specimen of a period, an illustration of a calling, or an example of a class. He is in no sense a representative man. He stands alone in his peculiar and personal description of celebrity; presenting, we believe, the solitary instance of a political aspirant achieving, along with enduring reputation, a position of social equality with statesmen and nobles, in an aristocratic country and under a despotic government, by his pen. He starts with no advantage of birth or fortune, and he never acquires wealth: he produces no work of creative genius: he does not intrigue, cringe, or flatter he does not get on by patronage: he is profuse without being venal: he is always on the side which he thinks right: yet we find him, almost from the commencement to the very close of his career, the companion

and counsellor of the greatest and most distinguished of his contemporaries, the petted member of the most brilliant and exclusive of European circles. In early manhood he had earned the hatred of Napoleon and the friendship of Pitt. In declining age he was at once the trusted friend of Metternich, the correspondent of Mackintosh, the Platonic adorer of Rahel, and the favoured lover of Fanny Elssler. How often might he have exclaimed

'One glorious hour of crowded life
Is worth an age without a name.'

Excitements and enjoyments of all sorts-from flattered vanity and gratified love to the proud consciousness of European fame and influence-follow each other in rapid succession, or come together thronging with intoxicating intensity. Beyle says of himself that he required three or four cubic feet of new ideas per day, as a steamboat requires coal. What would have been a reasonable allowance for Gentz? How did he win his way to that giddy pinnacle, which was to himwhatever it may seem to cooler heads or less susceptible temperaments-the quintessence of enjoyment, the crowning test and token of success? How or where did he find health, strength, time, mind, or money for the wear and tear of the contest, the lavish pecuniary expenditure and the reckless intellectual waste of the strife?

Speaking of the position won by Sheridan, Moore asserts that by him who has not been born among the great, this can only be achieved by politics. In that arena, which they look upon as their own, the legislature